Nathan Bodington

Sir Nathan Bodington (29 May 1848 – 12 May 1911) was the first Vice Chancellor of the University of Leeds having been Principal and Professor of Greek at the Yorkshire College since 1883.[1] From 1897 to 1901 he was also Vice-Chancellor of the Victoria University.[2]

Mason College, now the University of Birmingham

Bodington was born in Aston, Birmingham, and educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Wadham College, Oxford, where he studied classics. He was a teacher at Manchester Grammar School and Westminster School, Professor of classics at Mason College, (which later became Birmingham University), and Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford.[1][3]

Bodington was responsible for consolidating the Yorkshire College's position within the Victoria University and later, when the fragmentation of members occurred, for obtaining the charter for the separate university in Leeds.[3]

He was knighted in 1908.[4]

He married Eliza, the daughter of Sir John Barran, on 8 August 1907, but they had no children. He died in Headingley, Leeds, on 12 May 1911.[1]

In 1961, the university opened Bodington Hall its largest hall of residence, named after him.[5] A housing estate on this site is now called Bodington Manor.[6]

References

1. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography accessed 25 July 2009
2. Charlton, H. B. (1951) Portrait of a University, 1851-1951. Manchester: Manchester University Press; p. 140
3. Draper, W. (1912) Sir Nathan Bodington: a memoir. London: Macmillan
4. London Gazette 17 December 1908
5. Leodis Bodington Hall, Adel Lane
6. Yorkshire Evening Post 4 September 2013 Homes set to be built on former university site in Leeds as market recovers

Further reading

• The Thoresby Society Sir Nathan Bodington (1848-1911)