Brian Houghton Hodgson

Brian Houghton Hodgson (February 1, 1800 – May 23, 1894) was an English civil servant, ethnologist and naturalist.

Hodgson was born at Prestbury, Cheshire. At the age of seventeen he travelled to India as an official of the East India Company. He was sent to Katmandu in Nepal, becoming British Resident in 1833. He studied the Nepalese people, producing a number of papers on their languages, literature and religion. He also studied the zoology of the country, amassing a large collection of mammal skins which he later donated to the British Museum. He discovered a new species of antelope which was named after him, the Tibetan Antelope Pantolopus hodgsoni. He also discovered 124 species of birds which had not been described previously, 79 of which he described himself.

Hodgson resigned in 1844 and returned to England for a short period. In 1845 he settled in Darjeeling and continued his studies of the peoples of northern India. In 1859 he again returned to England and settled in the Cotswolds.