William Henry Hudson | |
|---|---|
 William Henry Hudson | |
| Born | 4 August 1841 Quilmes, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina |
| Died | 18 August 1922 (aged 81) Kensington, London, England |
| Nationality | English Argentine |
| Known for | Green Mansions (novel) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Natural history Ornithology |
William Henry Hudson (4 August 1841 – 18 August 1922), known in Argentina as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, was an Anglo-Argentine author, naturalist and ornithologist.
Hudson was the son of Daniel Hudson and his wife Catherine (née Kemble), United States' settlers of English and Irish origin. He was born and lived his first years in a small estancia called "25 Ombues"[1] in what is now Ingeniero Allan, Florencio Varela, Argentina.
In 1846 the family established a pulpería further south, in the surroundings of Chascomús, not far from the lake of the same name.[2] In this natural environment, Hudson spent his youth studying the local flora and fauna and observing both natural and human dramas on what was then a lawless frontier, while publishing his ornithological work in Proceedings of the Royal Zoological Society initially in an English mingled with Spanish idioms. He had a special love for Patagonia.
Hudson emigrated to England in 1874, taking up residence at St Luke's Road in Bayswater,[3] where he continued to live for most of his life; in 1876 he married his landlady, the former singer Emily Wingrave, in Kensington, London.[4] One of the daughters of John Hanmer Wingrave, she was some eleven years older than Hudson, having been born on 22 December 1829.[5] He supported himself as a writer and journalist; the couple had no children.[6] Hudson himself was naturalized as a British subject on 4 July 1900.[7]
Hudson was a friend of the late-19th century English author George Gissing, whom he met in 1889. They corresponded until the latter's death in 1903, occasionally exchanging their publications, discussing literary and scientific matters, and commenting on their respective access to books and newspapers, a matter of supreme importance to Gissing.[8]
He campaigned (1900) against the building of the National Physical Laboratory in the grounds of Kew Gardens.[9]
In 1911 Emily Hudson became an invalid and moved to Worthing in Sussex. After that, Hudson lived apart from her "for reasons of his own health", although it is clear from their abundant surviving correspondence that he visited her frequently and they remained on affectionate terms.[4]
Hudson died on 18 August 1922, at 40 St Luke’s Road, Westbourne Park, Bayswater,[10] and was buried in Broadwater and Worthing Cemetery, Worthing, on 22 August 1922, next to his wife, who had died early in 1921.[11][a]
Hudson left an estate valued at £8225, and his Executors were the publisher Ernest Bell and Wynnard Hooper, a journalist.[10]
He produced a series of ornithological studies, including Argentine Ornithology (1888–1899) and British Birds (1895), and later achieved fame with his books on the English countryside, all of them set in Wiltshire, including Hampshire Days (1903), Afoot in England (1909), and A Shepherd's Life (1910), which helped foster the back-to-nature movement of the 1920s and 1930s.
Hudson's best-known novel is Green Mansions (1904), which was adapted into a a film starring Audrey Hepburn and Anthony Perkins, and his best-known non-fiction is Far Away and Long Ago (1918), which was also made into a film.
Hudson was an advocate of Lamarckian evolution. He was a critic of Darwinism and defended vitalism. He was influenced by the non-Darwinian evolutionary writings of Samuel Butler.[13][14] He was an early member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
The Hudson Memorial Bird Sanctuary in Hyde Park, London includes a carved stone memorial by Sir Jacob Epstein representing Rima, the child goddess of nature, who featured in Hudson's novel Green Mansions. The engravings are by the designer Eric Gill.
Ernest Hemingway referred to Hudson's The Purple Land (1885) in his novel The Sun Also Rises, and to Far Away and Long Ago in his posthumous novel The Garden of Eden (1986). He listed Far Away and Long Ago in a suggested reading list for a young writer.[15]
James Rebanks' 2015 book The Shepherd's Life about a Lake District farmer was inspired by Hudson's work of the same name: "But even more than Orwell or Hemingway, W.H. Hudson turned me into a book obsessive ..." (p. 115), and: "One day, I pulled A Shepherd's Life by W.H. Hudson from the bookcase ...and the sudden life-changing realization it gave me that we could be in books – great books." (p. 114)
In Argentina, Hudson is considered to belong to the national literature as Guillermo Enrique Hudson, the Spanish version of his name. A town in Berazategui Partido and several other public places and institutions are named after him. The town of Hudson in Buenos Aires Province is named for him.
