Henry Hobhouse (24 December 1924 – 5 March 2016), was an English sailor, broadcaster, journalist, farmer, author, and politician, best known for his book '' Seeds of Change: Five Plants That Transformed Mankind.''

Early life

Henry Hobhouse was known as "Tom" to distinguish him from his grandfather, a well-known Liberal politician also named Henry Hobhouse. He was born at Lamyat, Somerset in 1924 and was the second child of

Arthur Hobhouse Sir Arthur Lawrence Hobhouse (15 February 1886 – 20 January 1965) was an English Liberal politician who is best remembered as the architect of the system of national parks of England and Wales. He was a Member of Parliament for Wells fro ...

, Liberal MP for Wells and the architect of Britain’s National Park system. His uncle was the religious writer and peace activist

Stephen Henry Hobhouse Stephen Henry Hobhouse (5 August 1881 – 2 April 1961) was an English peace activist, prison reformer, and religious writer. Family Stephen Henry Hobhouse was born in Pitcombe, Somerset, England. He was the eldest son of Henry Hobhouse, ...

. He was educated at

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England *Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States *Éton, a commune in the Meuse depa ...

, but ran away at 17 in 1942 to join the Merchant Navy, where he was involved in the Atlantic convoy, and soon transferred to the Royal Navy, where he saw the

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

landing whilst working on the

Operation Pluto Operation Pluto (Pipeline Under the Ocean or Pipeline Underwater Transportation of Oil, also written Operation PLUTO) was an operation by British engineers, oil companies and the British Armed Forces to build oil Pipeline transport, pipelin ...

underwater pipeline.Henry Hobhouse, author - obituary
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

''. 25 March 2016

Career

After the war, Hobhouse found work with

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

, as one of US television's earliest on-screen news reporters, before becoming a newspaper journalist in the US, for the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

''. He returned to the UK and worked for ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...

'', and ''

The Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...

''. In the 1950s, he moved back to Somerset, where he spent the rest of life running a farm on the family estate, and became a Conservative Party county councillor in the 1980s. He was chairman of the county council from 1989 to 1992. His 1985 book, '' Seeds of Change: Five Plants That Transformed Mankind'', shows how the history of the world since Columbus "discovered" America has been changed by five plants: sugar, tea, cotton, the potato, and the cinchona (source of

quinine Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to ''Plasmodium falciparum'' that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal leg ...

). His obituary in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' noted that "Seeds of Change altered the way we understand modern history".Henry Hobhouse obituary
''

''. 10 April 2016 In the 1999 second edition of the book, ''Seeds of Change: Six plants that transformed mankind'', Hobhouse added the

coca plant Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known worldwide for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. Coca leaves contain cocaine which acts as a mild stimulant when chewed or c ...

to the list. In 2003, he published a follow-up book ''Seeds of Wealth: Four Plants That Made Men Rich'' covering timber, wine, rubber, and tobacco.

Personal life

His first wife was the American sculptor Frances Liedloff, and their daughter,

Janet Hobhouse Janet Hobhouse (March 27, 1948 – February 1, 1991) was an American novelist, biographer and editor. She is the author of four novels, including the posthumously published ''The Furies''. Her first published work was a biography of Gertrude Ste ...

, became an author and biographer of

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh), and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and ...

. His second wife was Pamela Hill. They married in 1954 and had four sons together, including the businessman

Will Hobhouse William Arthur Hobhouse (born September 1956) is an English businessman and investor, former chairman of the furniture store chain Heal's. He was appointed High Sheriff of Hertfordshire in March 2017. Early life He is the son of Henry Hobhous ...

. She died in 1981. In 1987 he married Bridget Brooks, who survives him. At his funeral, the

eulogy A eulogy (from , ''eulogia'', Classical Greek, ''eu'' for "well" or "true", ''logia'' for "words" or "text", together for "praise") is a speech or writing in praise of a person, especially one who recently died or retired, or as a term o ...

was given by his godson, the Tory MP

Jacob Rees-Mogg Sir Jacob William Rees-Mogg ( ; born 24 May 1969) is a British politician, broadcaster and member of the Conservative Party who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Somerset from 2010 to 2024. He served as Leader of the House o ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hobhouse, Henry 1924 births 2016 deaths 20th-century English farmers English journalists English television personalities English writers

Henry Henry may refer to: People and fictional characters * Henry (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters * Henry (surname) * Henry, a stage name of François-Louis Henry (1786–1855), French baritone Arts and entertainmen ...

People educated at Eton College People from Somerset Potter family Royal Navy personnel of World War II The Economist people CBS News people The Wall Street Journal people Daily Express people British Merchant Navy personnel of World War II Royal Navy sailors Military personnel from Somerset 21st-century English farmers