Sir Arthur Lawrence Hobhouse (15 February 1886 – 20 January 1965) was a long-serving English local government Liberal politician, who is best remembered as the architect of the system of national parks of England and Wales.

Hobhouse was the son of prominent Liberal politician and MP Henry Hobhouse and the brother of peace activist, prison reformer, and religious writer Stephen Henry Hobhouse.

Arthur Hobhouse was educated at Eton College, St Andrews University and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in Natural Sciences. At Cambridge, he was a Cambridge Apostle and a member of the Cambridge University Liberal Club, becoming Secretary in 1906^[1] and was also the lover of John Maynard Keynes and Duncan Grant.^[2][3]

Hobhouse practised as a solicitor until the outbreak of World War I, when he joined the British Expeditionary Force. After the War he joined the Claims Commission, dealing with claims against Allied forces in the Abbeville area, and rose to the rank of Staff Captain. Returning to civilian life, Hobhouse took to farming on a family estate Hadspen house and garden in Somerset.

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He stood as Liberal candidate for Wells at the 1922 General Election when he finished a strong second. He was elected Member of Parliament for Wells at the 1923 General Election but lost the seat in 1924. He failed to regain Wells in 1929.^[4]

In his youth, Hobhouse's affairs were exclusively homosexual. He had long-standing affairs with the Bloomsbury Group members Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, and John Maynard Keynes. Hobhouse was considered extremely desirable in Edwardian gay circles and was the subject of much infighting amongst the men of Bloomsbury.^[5]

Hobhouse married Konradin Huth Jackson, daughter of Frederick and Annabel Huth Jackson; they had five children:

• Elizabeth Hobhouse (1921–1995)
• Henry Hobhouse (1924–2016)
• Paul Rodbard Hobhouse (1927–1994)
• Mary Hermione Hobhouse (1934–2014)
• Anne Virginia Hobhouse (1936–2023)

Hobhouse's eldest daughter married first Michael Francis Eden later Lord Henley, and secondly Michael King, son of Cecil Harmsworth King. Hobhouse's eldest son, Henry, wrote Seeds of Change: Five Plants That Transformed Mankind. Henry was married three times, and had a daughter, Janet, who died in 1991.^[6][7] A younger son, Paul, married Penelope Chichester-Clark.^[8]