BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, EARLS OF. The first earl of Buckinghamshire (to be distinguished from the earls of Bucking ham (q.v.) was John Hobart (c. 1694-1756), a descendant of Sir Henry Hobart (d. 1625), attorney-general and chief justice of the common pleas under James I., who was made a baronet in 1611, and who was the great-grandson of Sir James Hobart (d. 1507), attorney-general to Henry VII. In 1740 Hobart became lord lieutenant of Norfolk and in 1746 earl of Buckinghamshire, his sister, Henrietta Howard, countess of Suffolk, being the mistress of George II. He died on Sept. 22 1756, and was succeeded as 2nd earl by his eldest son John (1723-93), who was member of parliament for Norwich and comptroller of the royal household before his accession to the title. From 1762 to 1766 he was ambassador to Russia, and from 1776 to 1780 lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He died without sons at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, on Aug. 3 1793, when his half-brother George (c. 1730-1804), be came 3rd earl.
Robert Hobart, 4th earl of Buckinghamshire (176o-1816), the eldest son of the 3rd earl, was born on May 6 17 60. He was a soldier, and then a member of both the English and Irish Houses of Commons; from 1789 to 1793 he was chief secretary to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, exerting his influence in that country to prevent any concessions to the Roman Catholics. In 1793, being known by the courtesy title of Lord Hobart, he was sent to Madras as governor, but in 1798, after serious dif ferences between himself and the governor-general of India, Sir John Shore, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, he was recalled. Re turning to British politics, Hobart was called up to the House of Lords in 1798 (succeeding to the earldom of Buckinghamshire in 1804) ; from March 180i to May 1804 he was secretary for war and the colonies (his family name being taken for Hobart Town in Tasmania), and in 1805 he became chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster under Pitt. For a short time he was joint postmaster-general, and from 1812 until his death on Feb. 4 1816, he was president of the Board of Control.
The 4th earl left no sons, and his titles passed to his nephew, George Robert Hobart (1789-1849), a son of George Vere Hobart (1761-1802), lieutenant-governor of Grenada. In 1824 the 5th earl inherited the Buckinghamshire estates of the Hamp den family and took the name of Hampden, his ancestor, Sir John Hobart, 3rd baronet, having married Mary Hampden about See Lord Hobart's Essays and Miscellaneous Writings, edited with biography by Lady Hobart (1885) .