Leslie Hodgson

Leslie Hodgson (29 August 1914 – 17 January 1979) was a British trade unionist.

Born in Driffield, Hodgson came into contact with the trade union movement by playing cricket alongside coal miners. He trained as a carding machine operator in the woollen industry, and joined the Card Setting Machine Tenters' Society (CSMTS) in 1933. In 1951, he was elected as the union's General President.

The CSMTS was one of the smallest unions affiliated to the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), Under Hodgson's leadership, the GFTU gained a significant number of new members, including some larger unions, and for the first time set up a research service.

Hodgson announced in 1976 that he wished to retire, but the Management Committee decided that none of the first set of candidates to replace him were suitable, so he served until December 1977, spending the last three months alongside his successor, Peter Potts. A few days after retiring, Hodgson was diagnosed with cancer, and he died in the middle of January 1979.