Stephen Henry Hobhouse
2 April 1961 (aged 79)
Religious writer
English prisons to-day: Being the report of the Prison system enquiry committee
Henry Hobhouse
Margaret Heyworth Potter
Arthur Lawrence Hobhouse
(brother)
Stephen Henry Hobhouse was born in Pitcombe, Somerset, England. He was the eldest son of Henry Hobhouse (1854–1937), a wealthy landowner and Liberal Party MP from 1885 to 1906, and Margaret Heyworth Potter.[1] Both sides of his family included a number of reformers and progressive politicians:
Education and formative years[edit]
Stephen Hobhouse was brought up as a member of the Church of England.[3] He was educated at Eton, where he won prizes in both academics and sports, and at Balliol College, Oxford.[4] Hobhouse attended Quaker meetings in Hampstead after graduation and officially became a member of the Society of Friends in 1909.[5]
The Second Boer War broke out when he was 18. He originally supported the war but his views were soon challenged by his cousin Emily. "Thus, no doubt, it was that my mind was prepared for the awakening". What he regarded as an awakening came from a 1902 reading of a pamphlet by Leo Tolstoy. This tract had a profound influence on him and he became an ardent pacifist.[6]
He worked as a civil servant for seven years in the Board of Education.[7] During the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, he resigned his post to go to Constantinople as a volunteer with a Quaker relief mission that helped refugees and saw firsthand the damage that war can do.[8]
Marriage[edit]
In April 1915, Hobhouse married Rosa Waugh (1882–1971).[1] He met her at a dinner party for Christian activists. She was also an activist, and spent three months in jail for distributing pacifist pamphlets.[4] Rosa was a prolific author.[9] Together they wrote a biography of Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy.[10] Both Hobhouses were believers in homeopathy, and Steven translated articles for the Homeopathic Journal.[11]
As eldest son of a wealthy family, Stephen stood to inherit a large fortune, but, influenced by Tolstoy again, he renounced his inheritance. He and his wife adopted a lifestyle of poverty, living in Hoxton, then a slum district in East London.[12] At the same time they joined the Quakers and became active in Quaker service.[3]