Charles William Hobley, CMG (b. Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire, England in 1867; d. Oxted, Surrey on 31 March 1947) — known as C. W. Hobley — was a pioneering British Colonial administrator in Kenya. He served the Colonial Service in Kenya from 1894 until his retirement in 1921 and published a number of monographs on a variety of subjects.

Biography

The son of an Indian Civil Servant, Hobley underwent technical education in engineering at Mason College (now the University of Birmingham). He joined the Imperial British East Africa Company and was sent to Mombasa in 1890, where he served as Transport Superintendent at the coast. He left the company after three years but within a year had become a First Class Assistant under the Foreign Office and served the British government in Kenya from that point on. He undertook a general tour of the whole of the Central African Lake Region (1895–96) and first arrived at Mumias in February 1895, where he established a British administration station along Sclater's Road. In 1896, he became the first European to circumambulate Mount Elgon and the same year he arrived in the Kano Plains/Kisumu area. He oversaw a number of punitive expeditions (1894–1908) which were carried out to pacify hostile natives. In 1905, he married Alice Mary Turner. Ultimately, Hobley became Provincial Commissioner of Kavirondo Region (later called Nyanza Province) and later (circa 1909) sub-commissioner of Ukamba Province (stationed in Nairobi). During the First World War, he served as Chief Political Officer to the British forces in what was later named Tanganyika Territory. He was awarded the Back Award of the Royal Geographical Society in 1915 and retired from the Foreign Service in 1921.

Publications

Something of a polymath, C.W. Hobley published on a wide variety of subjects.