by the Trustees of the Insolvent Estate. He clearly solved these early problems. In 1844, 1845, 1848 1849 and 1850 the Government Gazette reports him taking out a licence to ‘depasture stock, strip bark, and cut timber, (in Bourke) in the district of Port Phillip’. In 1845 he exported 100 tons of bark – probably black wattle bark used for tanning as well as 13 red gum logs. The bark may have been a by-product of land clearing by Hodgson. In 1846 he exported 27 logs on the Glenbervie bound for London. In 1847 he bought two lots of land in Warrnambool for £14 15s. By 1847 insolvency was well behind him as he was on the ‘Burgess list’ at an address ‘off Little Collins Street’ – probably the Bank Place address he used from then on. One had to meet a number of criteria to be a voter or burgess including owning property worth in excess of £1000. In 1847 he is listed in the Directory for the Town and District of Port Philip as 'Hodgson John: settler: Studley: Yarra Yarra'. He is on the Port Phillip electoral roll 1848-49 as owning a freehold property 'suburban, near Melbourne'. We know that he ran a store as one of John T. Smith's political opponents in 1848 said that Smith ‘went through the gradations of shopkeeper and third rate clerk to Mr. John Hodgson’ Another sign of Hodgson's financial strength is that he ran a horse stud. He advertised frequently in the Argus for the services of Euclid and Royal William in 1846 and 1847. The charge was £5 5s. for each mare. The stallions stood at ‘Mr. Hodgson's Paddock, Studley, near Melbourne.’ In 1851 he ran for the City of Melbourne in the inaugural Victorian Legislative Council which means that he met the Candidate criteria. of owning free-hold property worth £5000. When he stood for election to the first Legislative Council in 1851 the Argus attacked his candidacy commenting on his business interests as follows: it appears that his profession is of such a nature, as to afford ample leisure to attend to anything he takes in hand, and therefore, industry may be added to his list of public virtues. What that profession is, and with what particular interest we may suppose Mr Hodgson likely to be identified, we acknowledge that we are perfectly at a loss to conceive ;