Harold Hodges
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Birth name | Harold Augustus Hodges | ||||||||||||||||
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Date of birth | 22 January 1886 | ||||||||||||||||
Place of birth | Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, England | ||||||||||||||||
Date of death | 22 March 1918(1918-03-22) (aged 32) | ||||||||||||||||
Place of death | Ham, France | ||||||||||||||||
Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||
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Harold Augustus Hodges (22 January 1886 – 22 March 1918) was an English sportsman and soldier who played international rugby union for England. He also played first-class cricket for Nottinghamshire.
Hodges, a prop, was capped twice for England in the 1906 Home Nations Championship. He took part in their losses to Wales and Ireland.[1] At club level, he played for Nottingham and while studying at Trinity College in 1908 was captain of the Oxford University RFC.
In 1911, he made his first-class cricket debut, against Derbyshire at the Miners Welfare Ground in Blackwell. He made his highest first-class score of 62 in his only innings, which the highest by a Nottinghamshire player in a low scoring match and bettered by only Derbyshire's Arthur Morton, who was the one that dismissed Hodges.[2] The following year, he made two further appearances and finished his first-class career with 141 runs, at an average of 47.[3]
During World War I, Hodges served with the 3rd Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment. On the night of 22 March 1918, he entered a small factory on a road between Ham and Eppeville, hoping to make contact with a British battalion. He instead encountered enemy troops and was shot dead.[4]