Father and son
Robert Spencer Hudson (1867 – 1958)
Robert Spencer Hudson was born on 27th November 1867, the youngest child of Robert Spencer Hudson and Ann Mills. He was educated at the Elborow and Lawrence Sheriff Schools and in 1881 was apprenticed, as a carpenter, to J. Parnell and Sons, the Rugby builders. He eventually became works manager and retired in 1945 after 64 years with the firm. Through Parnell’s he was involved with the construction of the Queen’s Dolls’ house.
He was elected to the Rugby Urban District Council in 1918 and was its last Chairman before the creation of the Borough Council in 1932. In 1935 he was elected Mayor and served as deputy four times. In 1943 he was made the first Honorary Freeman of the Borough.
He married Annie Goble of Bicester in 1894 and they had six children. He died aged 90 in 1958, Annie having died in 1944.
Robert George Spencer Hudson (1895 – 1965)
Robert George Spencer Hudson was born in Rugby, the eldest son of Robert and Annie. He was educated at St Matthew’s School and Lawrence Sheriff School, where his interest in geology was started through a schoolmaster taking the students fossil hunting in the strata used for cement making.
Hudson left school in 1913 and became a student teacher at Elborow Boys’ School. In World War I, he served in the Artists’ Rifles and the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, becoming a 2nd Lieutenant (Acting Captain). In 1918 he went to University College London, to read geology, graduating with first class honours in 1920.
His early career was academic, first at U.C.L, and then Leeds University where he became Professor of Geology. In 1946 he joined the Iraq Petroleum Company and did extensive field trips to Palestine, Iraq, and Oman. He retired from I.P.C. in 1958, but became an Iveagh Research Fellow at Trinity College, Dublin in 1960. He was appointed to the Chair of Geology and Mineralogy there in 1961.
He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1961. He was also Vice President of the Geological Society of London and founder President of the Paleontological Association. Between 1923 and 1966 over one hundred of his papers were published. He died in Dublin in 1965.
Two of his younger brothers received the M.B.E.: William Spencer for his work as regional fuel engineer in Nottingham and Edward Charles during World War II.
Information provided by his son, William, from the U.S.A.