Charles Thomas Hudson

Charles Thomas Hudson (11 March 1828 – 23 October 1903) was an English naturalist, particularly interested in microscopical research, and in the microscopic animal rotifer.

Early life and teaching career Hudson was born in 1828 in Brompton, London, third of five sons of John Corrie Hudson, chief clerk of the Legacy Duty Office, and wife Emily. His father in youth was an advanced radical and friend of William Godwin, of the Shelleys, Charles Lamb and William Hazlitt.

He was educated at Kensington Grammar School and The Grange, Sunderland. He was musical, and as a young man wrote and composed songs. Family circumstances compelled him to earn his living by teaching at an early age, in Glasgow and later at the Liverpool Royal Institution. In 1848 he went to St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1852, proceeding M.A. in 1855 and LL.D. in 1866. After leaving Cambridge he became on 25 July 1852 second master of Bristol Grammar School, and on 30 March 1855 he was appointed headmaster. His first printed paper was on Rhinops Vitrea in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for 1869. Afterwards he published numerous papers in the Microscopical Journal and the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, describing new genera and species of Rotifera, of which Pedalion mirum was a notable discovery. A list of these papers is given in the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Society for 1904, page 49.

The Hudson Transparencies The Hudson Transparencies are a collection of 58 large framed manila paper screens made by Hudson, circa 1880s, as teaching aids. Shapes were cut out of the manila paper and decorated with tissue paper, which was painted with watercolour designs. When the transparencies are backlit, striking images of microscopic organisms become apparent. The Hudson Transparencies are held in the University of Exeter Special Collections Department, reference number EUL MS 442.

A study of the transparencies was carried out in 2011 by Robin Wootton for an article in the Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association 143, where the transparencies were catalogued for the first time and twenty illustrated.