HOBLYN, Robert (1710-56), of Nanswhyden, Cornw. and Bristol, Glos.

Robert Hoblyn, a well-known book collector, of an old Cornish family,Maclean, Trigg Minor, i. 473. made his fortune by tin mining, supplying the brass working industry at Bristol, in association with his father-in-law, Thomas Coster. Returned as a Tory for Bristol, he voted regularly against the Government and was classed as Opposition in 1747. But on 21 Jan. 1749 he wrote to his friend, Edward Southwell, the other Member for Bristol, about a recent debate on the army estimates:

Had I been well last Wednesday we should not have parted on the division, though arguments against standing armies in time of peace make as strong an impression on me as they can on anyone - but surely though we have a peace, we are not yet come to that absolute state of peace that should put us quite off our guard ... If an opposition is to come from a certain quarter I am glad a man of Dr. Lee’s sense is at the head of it; if conducted by some others it might be of less consequence as to weight in the House, but do more real mischief and widen breaches that all honest men must wish to see healed - too strict a union between two brothers [the Pelhams] cant be so fatal as a division between two greater brothers [the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cumberland].Add. 11759, f. 230.

About the same time the 2nd Lord Egmont in his electoral survey described Hoblyn as ‘an insignificant man, obedient to the dictates of the people’. Shortly before the next general election it was reported that he ‘was to be set up for the Whig interest and would act agreeably to the ministry’,Ld. Edgcumbe to Enys, 7 Oct. 1753, autograph coll. R. Inst. Cornw. but he did not stand again. He died 17 Nov. 1756, by his will appointing Southwell one of the trustees of his property.PCC 87 Paul.