Dr David Hodges – Founding Editor of Biological Agriculture & Horticulture

Abstract

It is with great sadness that I write to announce the death of Dr David Hodges, Founding Editor of Biological Agriculture & Horticulture. David Hodges was born in 1934 and spent his early childhood years in places close to London and then in Devon, England. Hodges studied Zoology at Exeter University, where he met his wife Ursula (nee Rumley). After graduating in 1957, Hodges moved to London to undertake research for a PhD at the Institute of Urology of London. Just at the point of submitting his thesis in 1960 Hodges was drafted in for national service at the Royal Army Medical Corps, hence the completion of his PhD had to be delayed until 1962. According to Hodges himself, one of the most valuable things he learnt from his time with the army was the futility of war and he became a pacifist not long afterwards (Hodges 1988). Ursula and David Hodges were married in 1958, and in 1962, after Hodges’ national service, they moved to Ashford in Kent, England, where he took up a lecturing post at Wye College, the School of Agriculture of the University of London. Hodges’ role at Wye College was initially intended to be mainly associated with research into the physiology of laying hens and he spent a number of years investigating calcium metabolism and digestive function in battery hens. Hodges’ research experience in intensive poultry production opened his eyes to what was happening in industrial food production, and this, together with reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, soon began to change his whole outlook. Hodges was convinced that the industrial approach to agriculture was morally wrong and that in practice it would create more problems than it would solve (Conford 2011a, 2011b). He developed a strong interest in all matters related to organic agriculture and, although his work at Wye College was mainly teaching and to undertake research in the field of animal physiology, being in a School of Agriculture gave him the necessary justification to become involved in the wider aspects of organic farming. In the years that followed, Hodges came to have a very a prominent role in the organic agriculture movement in Britain. Indeed, with his specific interest in the scientific exploration of organic agriculture and pursuit for developing the scientific case for organic farming, the remarkable work of Dr David Hodges was the subject of an agricultural history paper written by Conford (2011a). Hodges acknowledged that, academically, his work in organic farming had not always been an easy task and it had often been an uphill struggle to convince those with whom he worked that the organic option was something worth looking into. Even in the face of considerable evidence of the BIOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE & HORTICULTURE 2019, VOL. 35, NO. 4, 215–218 https://doi.org/10.1080/01448765.2019.1662661