Stephen Dodgson was a British composer, son of the symbolist painter John Dodgson, and a distant relative of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). He attended Berkhamsted School in Hertfordshire and Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, before serving in the Royal Navy in World War II. Following the war, he studied with Bernard Stevens in London, and enrolled in the Royal College of Music to study composition with R.O. Morris, Patrick Hadley, and Antony Hopkins. Dodgson won the Cobbett Memorial Prize, two Royal Philharmonic Society prizes, and the Octavia traveling scholarship. By the 1950s, his career was well established, and he taught at the Royal College of Music, where he was professor of composition and music theory until 1982. Dodgson was prolific in most genres, including orchestral, band, chamber, choral, and vocal music. He explored unusual instruments, particularly contributing to the modern repertoire of the harpsichord, guitar, and recorder. Dodgson was a frequent broadcaster on BBC Radio and a composer of music for radio plays. He remained active until the last months of his life.