Robin Granville Hodgson, Baron Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, (born 25 April 1942) is a British

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

politician and

life peer In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages ...

Early life and education

Hodgson was born in 1942 in

Leamington Spa Royal Leamington Spa, commonly known as Leamington Spa or simply Leamington (), is a spa town and civil parish in Warwickshire, England. Originally a small village called Leamington Priors, it grew into a spa town in the 18th century following ...

, son of Henry Edward Hodgson. He was educated at the independent, fee-paying

Shrewsbury School Shrewsbury School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13 –18) in Shrewsbury. Founded in 1552 by Edward VI by Royal Charter, it was originally a boarding school for boys; girls have been admitted into the ...

. He graduated from the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

in 1964 and attained an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from the

Wharton School of Finance The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...

in 1969.

Political career

Hodgson ran as a Conservative in both the

February February is the second month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The month has 28 days in common years or 29 in leap years, with the 29th day being called the ''leap day''. It is the first of five months not to have 31 days (th ...

and October 1974 general elections, in which he unsuccessfully contested the strongly

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

seat of

Walsall North Walsall North is a constituency created in 1955 represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Eddie Hughes, a member of the Conservative Party. The local electorate returned a Labour MP in the seat's first seventeen ...

. However, in a 1976 by-election caused by incumbent

John Stonehouse John Thomson Stonehouse (28 July 192514 April 1988) was a British Labour and Co-operative Party politician and cabinet minister under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Stonehouse is remembered for his unsuccessful attempt at faking his own death in ...

's imprisonment, Hodgson managed to overturn the large Labour majority to become the seat's

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

. However, at the 1979 general election, Hodgson could not hold the seat against the Labour candidate,

David Winnick David Julian Winnick (born 26 June 1933) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Walsall North between 1979 and 2017, he was also the MP for Croydon South from 1966 to 1970. Early life Born into a Britis ...

, despite achieving an 11% swing for the Conservatives. The seat was then held by Labour until

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

, when it was won back by the Conservatives' Eddie Hughes. In 1981, he was selected as the candidate for the safe Conservative seat of

Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...

, but resigned his candidature in 1982 for undisclosed personal reasons, and never returned to the Commons. He was awarded a

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in the 1992

New Year's Honours The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, with New Year's Day, 1 January, being marked by naming new members of orders of chivalry and recipients of other official honours. A number of other Commonwealth realms also mark thi ...

. Hodgson served as Chairman of the National Union of Conservative Associations from 1996 until 1998, and as Chairman of the National Conservative Convention from 1998 until 2000. He was created a life peer, as Baron Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, ''of Nash in the

County of Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to t ...

'', on 7 June 2000. In November 2011, Hodgson was appointed by David Cameron's government to perform a wholesale review of the

Charities Act 2006 The Charities Act 2006 (c 50) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom intended to alter the regulatory framework in which charities operate, partly by amending the Charities Act 1993. The Act was mostly superseded by the Charities Act ...

and

Charities Act 2011 The Charities Act 2011c 25 is a UK Act of Parliament. It consolidated the bulk of the Charities Act 2006, outstanding provisions of the Charities Act 1993, and various other enactments. Repeals Legislation repealed in its entirety by the 2011 A ...

, which was published in 2012. He is an ambassador for the volunteering network, REACH. In May 2021 Hodgson co-authored an essay entitled "Population Growth, Immigration, and 'the Levelling Up' Agenda" with Lord Horam, for inclusion in ''Common Sense: Conservative Thinking for a Post-Liberal Age'' published by the

Common Sense Group The Common Sense Group is an informal group of Conservative MPs in the United Kingdom who advocate a broad range of ideals that they think the Conservative Party and the country ought to be following. The group was inspired by the euro-sceptic ...

, an informal group of Conservative MPs.

Business career

Hodgson has more than 40 years’ experience in the private equity, securities and investment banking industries. He co-founded the private equity and investment banking specialist group Granville in 1979, and spearheaded its growth as chief executive and then chairman. Lord Hodgson played a role in developing the new regulatory structure of the City, including 10 years as a director of the Securities and Futures Authority. He is the co-founder and Chairman of Nova Capital. Lord Hodgson holds a number of other non-executive directorships, is an active private investor and is Chairman of Nova’s Investment Committee. He has also at various times been director of Staffordshire Building Society and Marstons plc, the pub chain.

Personal life

In 1982, Hodgson married Fiona Ferelith Allom, who was created Baroness Hodgson of Abinger in 2013.

References

*''Times Guide to the House of Commons 1979'' * *

External links

* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Hodgson, Robin Baron Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, Hodgson, Robin, Baron Living people Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, Hodgson, Robin, Baron Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, Hodgson, Robin, Baron Honorary Fellows of St Peter's College, Oxford Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, Hodgson, Robin, Baron Spouses of life peers UK MPs 1974–1979 People educated at Shrewsbury School Life peers created by Elizabeth II