23 Facts About Leonard Hobhouse

Leonard Hobhouse's works, culminating in his famous book Liberalism, occupy a seminal position within the canon of New Liberalism.

Leonard Hobhouse 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.

Leonard Hobhouse was the founder and first editor of The Sociological Review.

Leonard Hobhouse's sister was Emily Hobhouse, the British welfare activist.

Leonard Hobhouse was born in St Ive, near Liskeard in Cornwall, the son of Reginald Leonard Hobhouse, an Anglican clergyman, and Caroline Trelawny.

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Leonard Hobhouse attended Marlborough College before reading Greats at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first-class degree in 1887.

In 1907, Leonard Hobhouse returned to academia, accepting the newly-created chair of sociology at the University of London, titled the Martin White Professor of Sociology, where he remained until his death in 1929.

Leonard Hobhouse was an atheist from an early age, despite his father being an archdeacon.

Leonard Hobhouse believed that rational tests could be applied to values and that they could be self-consistent and objective.

In terms of his political and philosophical views, Leonard Hobhouse was Gladstonian; a devoted follower of the philosopher John Stuart Mill; and an admirer of John Morley, Bradlaugh; and Sir Charles Dilke, 2nd Baronet.

Leonard Hobhouse often proposed republican and democratic motions at debating societies while he was at school.

Leonard Hobhouse distinguished between property held 'for use' and property held 'for power'.

Leonard Hobhouse theorised that property was acquired not only by individual effort but by societal organisation.

Leonard Hobhouse believed that to provide theoretical justification for a level of redistribution provided by the new state pensions.

Leonard Hobhouse disliked Marxist socialism and described his own position as liberal socialism and later as social liberalism.

Leonard Hobhouse thus occupied a particularly-important place in the intellectual history of the Liberal Democrats.

Leonard Hobhouse said that coercion should be avoided not for lack of regard for other people's well-being but because coercion is ineffective at improving their lot.

Leonard Hobhouse believed that one of the defining characteristics of liberalism was its emancipatory character, something that he believed ran constant from classical liberalism to the social liberalism he advocated.

Leonard Hobhouse nevertheless emphasised the various forms of coercion already existing in society apart from government.

Leonard Hobhouse held out hope that Liberals and what would now be called the social democrat tendency in the nascent Labour Party could form a grand progressive coalition.

Leonard Hobhouse was often disappointed that fellow collectivists in Britain at the time tended to be imperialists.

Leonard Hobhouse opposed the Boer War, and his sister, Emily Leonard Hobhouse, did much to draw attention to the abject conditions in the concentration camps established by the British Army in South Africa.

Leonard Hobhouse was an internationalist and disliked the pursuit of British national interests as practised by the governments of the day.