Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (8 September 1864 – 21 June 1929) was a British liberal political theorist and sociologist, who has been considered one of the leading and earliest proponents of social liberalism. His works, culminating in his famous book Liberalism (1911), occupy a seminal position within the canon of New Liberalism. He worked both as an academic and a journalist, and played a key role in the establishment of sociology as an academic discipline; in 1907 he shared, with Edward Westermarck, the distinction of being the first professor of sociology to be appointed in the United Kingdom, at the University of London. He was also the founder and first editor of The Sociological Review. His sister was Emily Hobhouse, the British welfare activist.

Hobhouse was born in St Ive, near Liskeard in Cornwall, the son of Reginald Hobhouse, an Anglican clergyman, and Caroline Trelawny. He attended Marlborough College before reading Greats at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first-class degree in 1887. Upon his graduation, Hobhouse remained at Oxford as a prize fellow at Merton College before becoming a full fellow at Corpus Christi. Taking a break from academia between 1897 and 1907, Hobhouse worked as a journalist (including a stint with the Manchester Guardian) and as the secretary of a trade union. In 1907, Hobhouse returned to academia, accepting the newly created chair of sociology at the University of London where he remained until his death in 1929.

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