Hobhouse was born in St Ive, near Liskeard in Cornwall, the son of Reginald Hobhouse, an Anglican clergyman, and Caroline Trelawny. He attended Marlborough College before reading Greats at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first-class degree in 1887. Upon his graduation, Hobhouse remained at Oxford as a prize fellow at Merton College before becoming a full fellow at Corpus Christi. Taking a break from academia between 1897 and 1907, Hobhouse worked as a journalist (including a stint with the "Manchester Guardian") and as the secretary of a trade union. In 1907, Hobhouse returned to academia, accepting the newly-created chair of sociology at the University of London, titled the Martin White Professor of Sociology, where he remained until his death in 1929.