Mary Hermione Hobhouse MBE FSA (2 February 1934 – 17 October 2014) was a British architectural historian and prominent preservation campaigner.
[1] She was the author of Lost London (1971), in whose introduction she wrote:[1] London is threatened with the grim prospect of a Manhattan-like future, becoming a city of the very rich and the very poor, a city unattainable and increasingly unattractive to the middle classes and to the younger families with children to bring up…Between 1973 and 1978 she gave lectures in architectural history at the Architectural Association as well as in the United States into the 1980s.
[1] A later chair, Peter Howell, said of her in this period:[3] Her academic credentials, and her networking skills (she was never one to miss a party), helped raise the Society's profile.Her assistant at the Victorian Society, Louise Nicholson, recalled:[3] On Mondays, she would often arrive at the Vic Soc's offices [in Bedford Park] direct from Somerset, wearing Wellington boots and carrying wicker baskets of home-grown fruit and vegetables.
[1] During her tenure she oversaw publication of survey volumes on part of Kensington and the challenging prospect of covering the Docklands area of East London at a time when it was dramatically changing and developing.
In the late 20th century the Royal Albert Hall underwent a five-year programme of refurbishment, and she was reported as having supervised the reinstatement of stencilling in the public areas.