Life

Hoblyn was born at Nanswhyden House, and baptised at St. Columb Major in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

 5 May 1710. His father, Francis Hoblyn, born in 1687, a J.P. for Cornwall and a member of the Stannary parliament, was buried at St. Columb on 9 Nov. 1711. His mother was Penelope, daughter of Colonel Sidney Godolphin of Shropshire. She married secondly, on 5 Sept. 1714, Sir William Pendarves of Pendarves.

Robert Hoblyn was educated at Eton

Eton College

Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....

, matriculated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Corpus Christi College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom...

, on 18 Dec. 1727, took a B.C.L. degree in 1734, and in the same year contributed verses to the ‘Epithalamia Oxoniensia.’ He sat as one of the members

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for the city of Bristol

Bristol (UK Parliament constituency)

Bristol was a two member constituency, used to elect members to the House of Commons in the Parliaments of England , Great Britain and the United Kingdom . The constituency existed until Bristol was divided into single member constituencies in 1885.-Boundaries:The historic port city of Bristol, is...

 from 24 Nov. 1742 to 8 April 1754, and was appointed speaker of two convocations of the Stannary parliament in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

13 June 1745, and admitted 24 Oct.

Early in life he travelled in Italy, where he collected many scarce books. He inherited an ample fortune, which was very largely increased by his success in mining. With his wealth he restored his ancestral home, Nanswhyden House, employing Potter as the architect. This building is described in Dr. Borlase's ‘Natural History of Cornwall,’ 1758, p. 90, pl. viii., engraved at the expense of Mrs. Jane Hoblyn. He delighted in building and collecting books, and destroyed all the documents relating to the cost. The books formed a useful collection, and were divided into the classes of natural and moral philosophy. He made a manuscript catalogue in which he marked with a star those works which were not in the Bodleian. All clergymen and persons of literary tastes had free access to the library.

Hoblyn died at Nanswhyden House on 17 Nov. 1756. His monument in St. Columb Church bears a very long inscription. He married Jane, only daughter of Thomas Coster, merchant, Bristol. She remarried in 1759 John Quicke of Exeter. The estates under the entail went to the issue male of Thomas Hoblyn of Tresaddern, while the library went with the widow to John Quicke. In 1768 Quicke printed the catalogue in two volumes, entitled ‘Bibliotheca Hobliniana sive Catalogus Librorum juxta exemplar quod manu sua maxima ex parte descriptum reliquit Robertus Hoblyn, Armiger de Nanswhyden in Comitatu Cornubiæ.’ An edition in one volume appeared in 1769. Dibdin says in referring to it:

‘I know not who was the author of the arrangement of this collection, but the judicious observer will find it greatly superior to everything of its kind, with hardly even the exception of the “Bibliotheca Croftsiana”’ (Bibliomania, pp. 74, 497).

The books were sold in London in 1778, and produced about £2,500. Nanswhyden House was destroyed by fire on 30 November 1803, with its collections of ancient documents, the records relating to the Stannary parliament, and a cabinet of minerals.