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. She was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where she read Modern History. Her sister believed Hermione's exposure to Victorian Gothic architecture in this period ignited her interest. On 2 July 1955, Lady Hobhouse held a small "coming-of-age" dance for Hermione and her sister Virginia at Hadspen. 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. She was the author of Lost London (1971), in whose introduction she wrote: