Bishop Samuel Wilberforce made him rural dean, and as secretary of the diocesan board of education he did much for the church schools, and helped to found the Culham training college for schoolmasters.
On the subdivision of the diocese of New Zealand, Bishop George Augustus Selwyn obtained the appointment of Hobhouse to the new see of Nelson, for which he was consecrated in 1858.
Hobhouse was diligent in ministering to his scattered flock, was generous in hospitality, provided a residence for the holder of the see, and founded the Bishop's School.
On the death of Selwyn in 1878, the new bishop, W. D. Maclagan, retained him as assistant; but ill-health led him to resign in 1881.
John Brodrick (d 1864), by whom he had two sons; and (2) in 1868 to Anna Maria, daughter of David Williams, Warden of New College, Oxford, who survived him.
[2] Hobhouse, who was from his Oxford days a zealous student of English mediæval history, more especially on its ecclesiastical side, published A Sketch of the Life of Walter de Merton (1859), and edited the Register of Robert de Norbury, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (in Collections for a History of Staffordshire, vol.
For the Somerset Record Society he edited Calendar of the Register of John de Drokensford, 1309–1329 (1887); Churchwardens' Accounts of Croscombe, &c. (1890); Rentalia et Custumaria Michaelis de Ambresbury (1891); and (with other members of the council) Two Cartularies of the Augustinian Priory of Bruton and the Cluniac Priory of Montacute (1894).