Bedale, North Yorkshire, Hodson later did National Service with the Palestine Police in Jerusalem.

Reading history at Trinity College, Oxford, he subsequently started management training at Imperial Tobacco before moving into the advertising industry in the 1950s. His career in the cultural sector began as controller, and later director, of arts and recreation for Swindon Borough Council.

During this tenure, he re-energised the city’s arts and leisure facilities, with developments including the Wyvern Theatre and Thamesdown Community Arts. The latter was instrumental to the early career of film director David Yates, now famous for his entries in the Harry Potter series, who received funding from Thamesdown for his short film When I Was Girl (1988).

Building on his local reputation as a champion of the arts, Hodson was appointed to severalThe Toronto-Dominion Bank and its subsidiaries are collectively known as TD Bank Group (TD). TD is the sixth largest bank in North America by branches and serves approximately 20 million customers in four key businesses operating in a number of locations in key financial centres around the globe: Canadian Personal and Commercial Banking, including TD Canada Trust, TD Insurance, and TD Auto Finance Canada; Wealth Management, including TD Waterhouse and an investment in TD Ameritrade; U.S. Personal and Commercial Banking, including TD Bank, America's Most Convenient Bank, and TD Auto Finance U.S.; and Wholesale Banking, including TD Securities. TD also ranks among the world's leading online financial services firms, with more than 7 million online customers. TD had CDN$665 billion in assets on July 31, 2011. The Toronto-Dominion