Hermione Hobhouse

Mary Hermione Hobhouse (2 February 1934 – 17 October 2014) was a British architectural historian and prominent preservation campaigner.

Family and early life Hobhouse was born on 2 February 1934 to Sir Arthur Hobhouse and Konradin Huth Jackson at Hadspen House, Castle Cary in Somerset.

Career After a short spell in the United States, Hobhouse took a job as a researcher with Granada Television. After this she began working as a freelance writer. Her first book, published in 1959, was a history of the Ward of Cheap in the City of London.

Her assistant at the Victorian Society, Louise Nicholson, recalled: She supported the Clapham Society and the Somerset Buildings Preservation Trust.

When the Reform Club allowed female members for the first time Hobhouse was one of the first to join. She was a keen supporter of the campaign to restore the club's home in Pall Mall, an Italianate palazzo by Charles Barry.

Death Hobhouse died on 17 October 2014, aged 80.

Personal life Hobhouse married architect Harry Graham in 1958. The marriage produced two children – a son, Francis, and daughter, Harriet – before being amicably dissolved. Hobhouse was survived by her children.

Partial bibliography The Ward of Cheap in the City of London: A Short History (1959) Lost London: A Century of Demolition and Decay (1971) Thomas Cubitt: Master Builder (1971, revised 1995) A History of Regent Street (1975) Oxford and Cambridge with Richard Gloucester (1980) Prince Albert: His Life and Work (1983) Survey of London Volume XLII: Southern Kensington: Kensington Square to Earl's Court (as editor) (1986) Good and Proper Materials: Fabric of London Since the Great Fire with Ann Saunders (1989) County Hall: Survey Of London Monograph 17 (as editor) (1991) Survey of London Volumes XLIII and XLIV: Poplar, Blackwall and the Isle of Dogs (as editor) (1994) London Survey'd: The Work Of The Survey Of London 1894–1994 (1994) Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition: Science, Art, and Productive Industry: The History of the Royal Commission of the Exhibition of 1851 (2002) History of Regent Street: A Mile of Style (2008)