Hobhouse

Hobhouse is a rare English surname, generally belonging to members of a family originally from Somerset. Those currently with this surname are members of several branches of this patronymic that achieved prominence from the 18th century. Originally merchants, the family diversified into the slave trade, joined the ranks of the West country gentry, accumulating wealth through advantageous marriages and entering into local and national politics, both with success.

Notable Hobhouses include:

• Isaac Hobhouse (1685–1763), English slave trader and merchant
• Benjamin Hobhouse (1757–1831), British politician
• John Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton (1786–1869), British politician and memoirist
• Thomas Hobhouse (1807–1876), British Liberal Party politician
• Edmund Hobhouse (1817–1904), bishop of Nelson, New Zealand, and an antiquary
• Reginald Hobhouse (1818–1895), first Archdeacon of Bodmin and father of Emily and Leonard
• Arthur Hobhouse, 1st Baron Hobhouse (1819–1904), English judge
• Henry Hobhouse (East Somerset MP) (1854–1937), English landowner and Liberal politician
• Emily Hobhouse (1860–1926), publicised the poor conditions inside the British concentration camps built in South Africa during the Second Boer War
• Charles Hobhouse (1862–1941), British Liberal politician, a member of the Liberal cabinet of H. H. Asquith between 1911 and 1915
• Leonard Hobhouse (1864–1929), British liberal politician and proponent of social liberalism
• Stephen Hobhouse (1881–1961), English peace activist, prison reformer, and religious writer
• Arthur Hobhouse (1886–1965), long-serving English local government Liberal politician, the architect of the system of National Parks of England and Wales
• Hermione Hobhouse (1934–2014), architectural historian and conservationist
• John Hobhouse, Baron Hobhouse of Woodborough (1932–2004), British Law Lord
• Wera Hobhouse, a German-born Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament
• Will Hobhouse, English businessman and investor
• Kate Hobhouse, British heiress, businesswoman and philanthropist
• Henry Hobhouse (author) (1924 -2016), English sailor, broadcaster, journalist, farmer, author, and politician,

Hobhouse may also mean:

• Hobhouse, Free State, town in South Africa