Parliament) was created in November 1856, Hodgson was elected a member for Central Province, a seat he held until August 1860. Other interests Hodgson had a continuing interest in the City's developing infrastructure. As early as 1846 he is noted in the Argus as proposing "a timber bridge across the Yarra Yarra, in the vicinity of Mr. Simpson's residence". Simpson was the well respected first "arbitrator" (1836) and later following Lonsdale, the second police magistrate of the new colony. Throughout the 1840s Simpson lived in Little Flinders Street. He was a member of the Victorian Institute for the Advancement of Science 1854, the Philosophical Institute of Victoria 1855, 1857–9 and the Royal Society of Victoria 1860. Royal Society He helped establish the Burke and Wills expedition. At a public meeting in the Mechanics Institute in Collins Street, Hodgson with six others formed the Exploration Fund Raising Committee in August 1958. In January 1860, with its work done, the EFRC was dissolved, and the Royal Society of Victoria formed an Exploration Committee, of which Hodgson became Vice Chair on 25 January 1860. Hodgson attended his last committee meeting on 23 July 1860, ten days before he died, and a couple of weeks before Burke and Willis left Melbourne on 20 August. Hodgson seconded the motion to establish "a Loyal Joint Stock Bank, to be called the Bank of Victoria", and served on the Provisional Committee to establish the Bank. An Act of the Legislative Council established the Bank in 1852. The Bank operated until 1927 when it merged with the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney which itself became part of the National Australia Bank in 1981. Hodgson attended a public meeting that aimed to take preliminary steps for the formation of "a Coal Company for the working of the coal known to exist at Western Port". References 1799 births 1860 deaths Mayors and Lord Mayors of Melbourne Members of the Victorian Legislative Council People from the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster 19th-century Australian politicians English emigrants to colonial Australia