Hobhouse, John Cam ___ 1786-1869 ___ British ___ politician

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Hobhouse was born at Redland near Bristol, and educated at Westminster School and at Cambridge University. He travelled round Europe with the poet Byron, and contributed notes to 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage', the book that first made Byron famous. Hobhouse's main interest, though, was politics. In 1819, his radical campaigning led him to be imprisoned briefly at Newgate. Between 1820 and 1833, he sat in Parliament for the constituency of Westminster, campaigning for social progress and justice on issues such as state regulation of factory labour, non-denominational education and the economic advancement of the working classes. As a conservative Whig in the 1830s, he held several government posts, including Secretary of War and Chief Secretary for Ireland. He commanded that his papers not to be opened until 1900; thereafter, his daughter, Lady Dorchester, published extracts from his diary.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1809-1852 ___ literary political travel society people theatre

WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
etext

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
British Library, Manuscript Collections

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
Recollections of a Long Life
The Alpine Journals of Lord Byron and John Cam Hobhouse
 

May 2005, July 2008, April 2013
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.