Hodgson is the daughter of Lionel Penrose and his wife Margaret Leathes, and the granddaughter of the physiologist John Beresford Leathes. She has three older brothers, Oliver, Sir Roger and the late Jonathan Penrose. She married Humphrey Hodgson in 1971.‘HODGSON, Prof. Humphrey Julian Francis’, Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2012; online edn, Nov 2012 accessed 30 March 2013
