Arthur Robert Jarvis HODSON (1904-1973)

Arthur Robert Jarvis Hodson (1904-1973) was the great-nephew of Eugénie Sladden, being the son of her niece, Annie de Salis Hodson (née Mourilyan).

Arthur was born in Brussels on 19th July 1904, the third of four children of Ernest and Annie Hodson.

On the outbreak of the First World War, Arthur and his older sister, Amy, and younger brother, Henry found themselves trapped at the Belgian seaside.  Amy kept a diary throughout the war.  Her great-niece, Monica Kendall, has edited the diaries which were published in 2015 by SilverWood Books under the title, “Miss Cavell was Shot, The Diaries of Amy Hodson 1914-1920”.  This includes an account of her experience of the start of the war, which begins:

On the 1st of August 1914 we all went for our summer holidays to Crocodile, a little seaside place between Westend and Middelkerke.  I had a lovely time for two or three days while Mother was with us, but on the 4th the landlady of the Villa Hortensias, where we were staying, came in all of a flurry, while we were breakfasting, saying that the Germans were in Belgium.  Mother immediately thought of Daddy and Auntie, who were in Brussels.  I helped her to pack, and she left us in charge of Mlle Hannah, the landlady.  But Mother promised us to come back in a few days, so we kissed her and wished her farewell:  she did not come back, for the Germans came into Brussels the 20th of August.

Arthur, Amy and Henry were rescued at the end of October and returned to Brussels.  As well as several references to their plight in letters written by concerned relatives back in England, Arthur is also mentioned in a letter of 19th March 1915 written by his mother.

Arthur went with his younger brother, Henry, and mother, Annie, to England in 1918, and then to boarding school in Kent.

Arthur emigrated to Canada in 1921, the passage paid for by his uncle, Fred Mourilyan.  In Canada he married Alma and they adopted two children.  Arthur died at Vancouver on 4th October 1973.