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Born in 1893 and a shop steward in the First World War who worked at Daimler, on 1st Nov. 1941 Hodgkinson, with Sidney Stringer and George Briggs, founded the Coventry Anglo-Soviet Unity Committee. Unable to contest Coventry West for the Labour Party in 1945 because of party rules, he was involved in local elections from 1921 and a councillor from the late 1920s, paid Secretary of Coventry Borough Labour Party (1925 - PA489/3/34/5) and (in 1923) chairman of the Gas Committee. Hodgkinson, who taught in the Junior Adult School Friends' Meeting House, favoured the early rebuilding of the cathedral when on the Planning and Redevelopment Committee but wanted Drapers' Hall demolished (PA468/5/11/3/22), and favoured Gibson's plans for the city centre. Hodgkinson also worked for Humber until 1923, was born at Beeston, Nottinghamshire, became mayor of Coventry in 1944 and wrote about his life in "Sent to Coventry", of which the Coventry and Warwickshire Collection has copies; he was a councillor from 1928 to 1937 and then an alderman for thirty years. See PA240/31. In 1939 Hodgkinson was involved with the Ministry of Information's local information committee (see PA204/6). See PA702 for his papers. Hodgkinson wrote "Planning and Redevelopment Committee: It's Philosophy, It's Achievements and It's Policy" [sic], c.1967 - see PA465/94/1. He was made an honorary freeman of the city in 1962 - copies of the ceremony order are at PA465/122/1 and in City Archives searchroom library pamphlet box C3(b). See PA465/123/4: PA2398/2/3/1/98: PA2684/2/1/2/21: PA2712/27/25. He was again on the city council, 1972-74. PA2754/3 are reminiscences which Hodgkinson wrote in 1949 for use by J.A. Yates in his "Pioneers to Power". PA2587/4,5 are tapes made in 1980 of Hodgkinson's memories of the blitz; transcripts are in the library section of the Coventry History Centre. Coventry's Romanian twin town of Galati gave Hodgkinson a medal in 1983 (see PA2790/9/6,7). PA2997/1 is a compact disc of Hodgkinson's 1986 reminiscences (recorded a few weeks before he died) of prewar and postwar schemes for reconstructing the city.