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Richard Hodgson

Secretary, Society for Psychical Research

Centurion, 1894–1905

Born 24 September 1855 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Died 20 December 1905 in Boston, Massachusetts

Proposed by Henry Holt, Samuel P. Langley, and Levi Holbrook

Elected 5 May 1894 at age thirty-eight

Century Memorial

Dr. Richard Hodgson was a native of Australia, where he was born in 1855, and a graduate of the University of Melbourne. He also was graduated in Mental and Moral Sciences at Cambridge University, and studied at the University of Jena. In 1884 he was University lecturer at Cambridge on the philosophy of Herbert Spencer. For some years previous to his coming to the United States, he pursued with much thoroughness the study of “spiritualistic” phenomena, and made in India a special investigation into the alleged miracles of Madame Blavatsky, with conclusions unfavorable to the claims of that remarkable woman. Since 1887 he had been Secretary and Treasurer of the American Branch of the Society for Psychical Research, to whose “Proceedings” he was an extensive contributor.

Edward Cary
1906 Century Association Yearbook