Sir Henry Hobart, 4th Baronet

Sir Henry Hobart, 4th Baronet (1657 – 21 August 1698) was an English Whig politician and baronet. He represented several seats in the House of Commons of England between 1681 and 1698, when he was killed in a duel with Oliver Le Neve.

Early life and family Henry Hobart was the eldest son to Sir John Hobart, 3rd Baronet and his first wife Mary Hampden, daughter to John Hampden. He was knighted at Blickling by King Charles II of England in 1671 and succeeded his father as baronet in 1683.

On 9 July 1684, he married Elizabeth Maynard, eldest daughter of Sir Joseph Maynard, and had by her a son and three daughters. His eldest daughter Henrietta was a mistress of King George II of Great Britain. The second daughter Catherine married Lieutenant-General Charles Churchill. Lady Hobart died in 1701.

Hobart was succeeded in the baronetcy by his son John, later raised to the peerage as Earl of Buckinghamshire.

Career Hobart was a Member of Parliament for King's Lynn between 1681 and 1685. His father's death in 1683 left Hobart as the leader of the Whigs in Norfolk. He represented Thetford from January to February 1689 and subsequently Norfolk until 1690. In 1689 he was appointed an equerry to King William III. Despite Hobart's influence in the county, he was unable to retain a seat in the election of 1690 when he was the only Whig to stand for election in Norfolk. In 1691 he was removed from office in the king's household, but the same year he was appointed Vice-Admiral of Norfolk.

In 1694, he was elected for Bere Alston in a by-election on the interest of his brother-in-law, the Earl of Stamford. Hobart was buried in the Blickling family vault. A plinth with an urn, called the Duel Stone, which commemorates the duel, stands in a National Trust plot on Norwich Road in Cawston.