He served in the Army during the Second World War and, after being demobilised, noticed the potential for bombed-out plots of land in central London to be used as car parks.
[1] In October 1948,[1] he and Donald Gosling (then a trainee surveyor at Westminster City Council) secured planning permission to convert a site in Holborn into a car park.
[2] As The Independent summarised in 1998: "Whether the two knew that the motor-car would become of the cylinders in society's engine or property prices would go sky high is not clear.
[1] In 1998, Hobson and Gosling sold NCP (which had over 650 car parks by that time) to Cendant for £801 million; they had owned a 72.5% share of the business.
[1] He turned down a knighthood in the "Lavender List" in 1976,[2] but accepted appointment as a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order thirty years later.