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Sir Charles Edward Henry Hobhouse, 4th Baronet, TD, PC, JP (30 June 1862 – 26 June 1941) was a British Liberal politician and officer in the Territorial Force. He was a member of the Liberal cabinet of H. H. Asquith between 1911 and 1915, and kept a diary, since published, of his time in the Cabinet.
Hobhouse was appointed to his first ministerial post in 1907 when Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman made him Under-Secretary of State for India. The Hobhouse Commission he headed recommended a cautious expansion of the panchayat raj system in Indian villages. The commission's report influenced later legislation for India. He then served under H. H. Asquith as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1908 to 1911. In 1909 he was sworn of the Privy Council. He was a member of Asquith's cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster between 1911 and 1914 and as Postmaster-General between 1914 and May 1915 when Asquith's Liberal government was replaced by a coalition in which Hobhouse did not hold office.
Hobhouse, told by his doctors that he had only months to live, retired from active politics in October 1915 (the last published entry in his diary is 14 October, followed by a letter to Asquith the following day thanking him for his kindness in promoting his career). However on the operating table what had been thought to be a growth was found to be merely “a large stoppage” and he resumed limited political activity thereafter.David 1977 pp 256-7
Apart from his career in national politics, Hobhouse was an Alderman on Wiltshire County Council from 1893 to 1924. He succeeded his father as fourth Baronet in 1916. At the Coupon election in 1918 he lost his seat, as did Asquith, and the leading former Liberal Cabinet ministers McKenna, Runciman, Simon, Samuel and McKinnon Wood. Hobhouse became the first former Cabinet minister to suffer the embarrassment of Election deposit, deposits being a measure just introduced to discourage “freak” candidates.David 1977 p.258
In 1922 Hobhouse stood again in North Buckinghamshire but again came third, behind both Conservative and Labour.this time he achieved a positive swing and finished only narrowly behind the Labour candidate - see the election results list in the article on the constituencyDavid 1977 p.258
Hobhouse, long associated with Bristol, was appointed to the largely honorary positions of President of the Western Counties Liberal Federation from 1924 to 1935 and President of the National Liberal Federation from 1926 to 1930.
Although only a relatively minor political figure, Hobhouse is now remembered largely for his diaries, which cover the years 1893-8 and 1904 to October 1915. They were discovered in a drawer, filling three handwritten exercise books, by a nephew after his death. About a third of the material was published in 1977, offering vivid portraits of people and events in Asquith’s Cabinet.David 1977, p.ix
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