INTERVIEW
life
Heritage, Harrods and
Hedgelaying
Sir John Hobart on his life and how the
family came to the Island
There aren’t many of us who can trace
our families back to the Norman invasion
but Sir John Hobart is one such man. The
family seat in Norfolk, Blickling Hall,
once home to the Boleyn family, was
purchased by Sir Henry Hobart when he
was Attorney General to Queen
Elizabeth I.
“It was the first property to be given as
an entire estate to the National Trust,”
said Sir John who now lives in Cowes.
“The Marquis of Lothian had inherited it
and as Chairman of the National Trust,
decided to bequeath the property to them
upon his death. Blickling is where most of
our family portraits still hang.”
The first connection the Hobart family
had with the Island was when Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir Henry Hobart, now Lord
Chief Justice, married John Lisle, of
Wootton in 1630. Just a few years later
Mary, wife of Colonel Robert Hammond,
who was the governor of the Isle of Wight
during King Charles’s imprisonment
at Carisbrooke, was to marry Sir John
Hobart on her husband’s death.
But it wasn’t until 1906 that the family
really began their history here. “My
Grandfather (Sir Vere Hobart) was posted
here to command the Isle of Wight
rifles. He was a lieutenant colonel in the
Hampshires and the family were living
in the New Forest where his father was
official verderer. He was also the Liberal
member of parliament for Southampton
and the parliamentary private secretary
to the Duke of Devonshire,” explained
Sir John. “I think my grandfather was
determined to come to the Isle of Wight
as he had joined the Island Sailing Club in
1892 at the age of 21. He must have been
sailing his dinghy over from Hythe where
Article by Jo Macaulay
he then lived, and over some 14 years had
grown to love the Island.”
When Sir Vere moved to the Island he
was based at Albany barracks and lived
at Standen Elms House on the Blackwater
Road. “Lady Hobart was very tough and
very tiny – barely five feet tall and she
used to breed Shetland ponies there,” said
Sir John. “She had over 400 of them and
people used to see them in the distance
and say, “What breed of sheep are those?”
She used to race them in little scurry
carts.”
Unusually for a woman, of that period,
she was the master of the Taunton Vale
Hunt, where she was tragically killed in
a hunting accident in 1935, possibly due
to the fact that she rode side saddle and
strapped herself to the horse so as not
to be thrown. After her death Sir Vere
bought Gatcombe House, remarried and
lived there with his new wife and his only
son, Robert. It was here that John grew up
with his brothers Robert and Anthony and
his sister Penelope.
“My father was a director of the Harrods
group and used to sit in the chairman’s
office which overlooked the Brompton
Road,” said Sir John. “As a boy I
remember him coming back from London
laden with green bags from Harrods Food
Hall at the weekends. Everything we had
was from Harrods as he could buy it for
cost plus 5%. He was also a director of
Red Funnel and as such did a deal with
British Rail to obtain a free first class rail
pass so it cost him nothing to come and
go. We looked as if we were millionaires
but it was all because father was good at
doing a deal!”
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Packed off to school to Milton Abbey
near Blandford Forum, John was part of
quite a spartan regime. “Early morning
runs and cold showers were part of the
daily routine – you’d run out into the
quad, all year round, in just shorts, no T
shirt and you couldn’t run fast enough.
You felt you had earned your breakfast,
after you had had a cold shower, of
course,” recalled Sir John. “It was a school
modelled on Gordonstoun but it wasn’t
very academic. Many of the lads went to
Cirencester (Royal Agricultural College)
or into the forces.” John went to the
former.
Sadly Sir John’s mother died when he
was only 18. “My brother Robbie was
16, Anthony was 8 and Penelope ten
and my father was in London, Glasgow
and even Denmark on House of Fraser
business,” he explained. “There wasn’t a
lot of parental control and we had a 2,000
acre estate. We used to get into trouble
with no supervision, pinching the estate
Land Rovers and driving them around in
the fields sometimes damaging the crops.
Brighstone forest was part of the estate
and it was here that my youngest brother
Anthony would train his point to pointers