21 June 1929

Death of Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse, writer and theorist associated with New Liberalism

One of the leading social theorists of his generation, Hobhouse was the thinker most associated (along with J.A. Hobson) with the ideas of ‘New Liberalism’ in the 1900s. New Liberals developed ideas on the enabling purposes of the state to expand liberty and posited the theory of positive liberty, recognising that the lack of economic opportunity, education or access to health care, was as threatening to liberty as the denial of traditional the Liberal rights of political and religious freedoms. Hobhouse’s key work is Liberalism, published in 1911 in which he sought to demonstrate that the reforms of the Asquith government were in sympathy with the principles of earlier Liberals such as J.S. Mill. In later life, unlike many of his new liberal colleagues, Hobhouse did not join the Labour Party, remaining opposed to class based politics.