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William Hodgson (Canadian politician)

Canadian politician in Ontario (1912-1988)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ8012382 ↗
Source-derived summary

William Marshall Chamberlain Hodgson (March 18, 1912 – October 27, 1988) was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1967 to 1985, as a member of the Progressive Conservative Party.

Background

Hodgson was born in Nobleton, Ontario to a family of seven children. He was educated at Bolton and worked as a dairy farmer. He and his wife Eliza raised four children, two sons and two daughters.

Politics

He won election to the King Township school board in 1946, and later served as councillor, deputy reeve and reeve of the community from 1949 to 1962. He also served as warden of York County in 1959, and was chair of the King Township planning board from 1963 to 1967.

He was elected to York North riding in the Ontario legislature in the 1967 provincial election, defeating Liberal candidate Tom Taylor by 2,127 votes in York North. He was re-elected in 1971, 1975, 1977, and 1981, and served as a backbench supporter of the John Robarts, William Davis and Frank Miller administrations. Hodgson was defeated in the 1985 election, losing to Liberal Greg Sorbara by 4,095 votes.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “William Hodgson (Canadian politician)” as canadian politician in Ontario (1912-1988). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around William, Hodgson and Canadian.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1912, 1988, 1967, 1985—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1912-03-18. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with William, Hodgson and Canadian providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “William Hodgson (Canadian politician)”, the useful work is to connect “canadian politician in Ontario (1912-1988)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8012382. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1988, 1967 and 1985.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “William Hodgson (Canadian politician)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow William Hodgson (Canadian politician) primary sources, William Hodgson (Canadian politician) archive and William research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “William Hodgson (Canadian politician)”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “William Hodgson (Canadian politician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.