moted from the senior clerkship at the board of trade to investigate and advise on the condition of Turkish finance, together with Mr. Foster, ‘deputy paymaster-general,’ his superior in office, and after making a report returned to Constantinople to carry out the measures he had proposed. Subsequently he was director-general of the Ottoman Bank, and in February 1872 was appointed governor of Madras. At Madras, despite his shy manner and scholarly tastes, he secured the esteem alike of the natives and of the English residents. He was anxious to improve the social status of the natives, and exerted himself in the promotion of education among all classes. He also busied himself in agitating for a harbour and an improved drainage system. He died at Madras of typhoid fever on 27 April 1875. Hobart appears to have been an unaffected lover of nature; he was a fluent, lucid, and forcible writer on political questions. He married, 4 Aug. 1853, Mary Catherine, daughter of Thomas Carr, bishop of Bombay.
His works are: 1. ‘Remarks on the Law of Partnership Liability,’ a pamphlet, 1853. 2. ‘Essay on the Alabama Claims,’ 1870. 3. ‘Political Essays,’ 1866; reprinted (with short biographical sketch), 1877. 4. ‘Fragments, &c.’ (in prose), Madras, 1875. 5. ‘Essays and Miscellaneous Writings’ (a collection of many of his articles and letters), with biographical sketch, ed. by Mary, lady Hobart, his widow, 2 vols. 1885.
[Biog. Sketch, 1877–85; Times, 11 Oct. 1876.]
HOBART-HAMPDEN, AUGUSTUS CHARLES, commonly known as Hobart Pasha (1822–1886), admiral, third son and fourth child of Augustus Edward Hobart (later Hobart-Hampden), sixth earl of Buckinghamshire, was born at Walton-on-the-Wolds, Leicestershire, on 1 April 1822. His mother was Mary, daughter of John Williams, king's serjeant, and sister to the judge Sir Edward Vaughan Williams. He went to Dr. Mayo's school at Cheam, Surrey, but according to his own confession (Sketches from my Life, 1887, p. 2) did not distinguish himself, and in 1835 he entered the royal navy, joining the Rover, 18 guns, at Devonport in February. The Rover was paid off at Plymouth in July 1838, and Hobart joined the Rose in October, became acting mate in July 1841, and, when paid off in July 1842, passed his examinations at the Naval College and on board the Excellent at Portsmouth. He qualified as gunnery-mate, and joined the Dolphin in the autumn of 1843. His first three ships were all employed off the coast of South America in the suppression of the slave-trade. Rio de Janeiro was the busy centre of that commerce, and Hobart appears to have enjoyed his full share of adventure, although in his own account of this period of his career he much exaggerated and misrepresented the stirring events in which he engaged. His last genuine exploit during the slave-hunting period was to carry a slaver prize into Demerara in May 1844. He afterwards returned to England, and was appointed to the queen's yacht as a reward for gallant conduct. In September 1845 he resumed active work as lieutenant on board the Rattler in the Mediterranean, and was transferred in 1847 to the Bulldog (Commander, afterwards Admiral Sir Cooper, Key), where he showed himself ‘full of zeal’ (Sir W. Parker, Life, iii. 323). On the outbreak of the Russian war Hobart served as first lieutenant on the same vessel in the Baltic squadron, and commanded the Driver for a fortnight (August 1854) at the reduction of Bomarsund and the reconnaissance at Åbo. His ship was commended in the despatches, and Hobart's ‘ability, zeal, and great exertion,’ at Åbo were specially mentioned. In 1855 he was on the Duke of Wellington, Admiral Dundas's flagship, and commanded the mortar-boats at the attack on Sveaborg (Helsingfors), for which he was again mentioned in despatches and was promoted to the rank of commander. Then for six years he left the regular service of the navy and became officer of the coastguard at Dingle, co. Kerry, and subsequently (1858–61) of the guardship at Malta. In 1861 he commanded the gun-vessel Foxhound in the Mediterranean, was promoted captain in March 1863, and immediately retired on half-pay. This was the end of his services in the British navy.
In spite of his family ‘interest’ Hobart's rise had been very slow. He was clearly unsuited to the precise discipline and decorous subordination of the regular service; he was created for adventure and hairbreadth escapes: ‘A bold buccaneer of the Elizabethan period, who by some strange perverseness of fate was born into the Victorian.’ At the time of his retirement the civil war in America was beginning, and Hobart, who was a staunch Southerner, joined some brother officers in running the blockade off the coast of North Carolina. The daring and skilful seamanship by which he carried his cargoes into Wilmington and Charleston, the exciting chases and narrow escapes of this adventurous period, when Hobart was thoroughly in his proper element, may be read in ‘Never Caught’ (1867), which he wrote under the pseudonym of ‘Captain Roberts,’ and which is practically reprinted in ‘Sketches from my Life’ (pp. 87–
