Sir Arnold Wienholt Hodson (12 February 1881 – 26 May 1944) was a British colonial administrator who was Governor in turn of the Falkland Islands, Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast.
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Background
Hodson was born in Bovey Tracey, Devonshire, in 1881, the eldest son of Algernon Hodson and Sarah Wienholt.
He was educated at Felsted.
Hodson was in Central Queensland visiting the Wienholt Estates 1900 to 1902 and was part of the Queensland Contingent for South Africa in 1902. He served in the Transvaal from 1902 to 1904.
From 1904 until 1912 he was in the Bechuanaland Protectorate Police Force. His duties as a policeman and magistrate took him into the most remote parts of the territory, one of his missions being the Damaraland frontier at the time of the Herero and Nama Wars in German South-West Africa. He was also much involved in trying to reconcile conflicts between tribal chiefs. His several political missions cover a most important period of the history of Botswana.
One of his journeys, in 1906, was made in the company of Sir Ralph Williams, Resident Commissioner, and was from Serowe to Livingstone and the Victoria Falls via Lake Ngami. Four years later Hodson organised a hunting trip for British High Commissioner Selborne, from Pandamatenga to Selous' old camp on the Mabebe Flats and on to the Chobe.