Robert Lockhart Hobson CB (26 July 1872 – 5 June 1941) was a British civil servant and antiquarian. He was keeper of the Department of Ceramics and Ethnography at the British Museum and an authority on Far Eastern ceramics. He was noted for his cataloguing which The Times described as establishing firm facts for what had previously been "surmise and unproved tradition" and he was highly influential through his writing in the elevation of Chinese ceramics from craft works to the status of objects of fine art. He was president of the Oriental Ceramic Society from 1939 to 1942. Early life Robert Hobson was born at Lambeg, County Antrim, Ireland, in 1872, the son of Reverend Canon William Thomas Hobson of the Isle of Man and Eliza Ann Dalglish. He had a brother, William Dalglish Hobson, born in 1886. He was educated at St John's School, Leatherhead, and received his advanced education at Jesus College, University of Cambridge, from where he graduated with a first-class degree in classics in 1893. Marriage In 1900, Hobson married the Honourable Daisy Denison, daughter of Rear-Admiral Hon. Albert Denison and granddaughter of Albert Denison, 1st Baron Londesborough. In 1938, Daisy was granted the rank of a Baron's daughter which would have been hers had her father survived to succeed as Lord Londesborough. She died in 1967. Career Hobson worked as a school teacher for four years before joining the British Museum in 1897. He served as a lieutenant in the Civil Service Rifles, part of the London Regiment, from 1914 to 1919. In 1921 he was made keeper of the Department of Ceramics and Ethnography which was formed for him. He gave evidence to the Royal Commission on National Museums and Galleries. He was appointed a member of the Order of the Bath in 1931. In 1934 he was made keeper of Oriental Antiquities and Ethnography, a position he held until his retirement in 1938 at which time he was presented with the gift of a portrait by Francis Dodd RA. He was closely associated with the China exhibitions at Burlington House in 1909–1910, 1915–16, and 1935–1936 the last of which was visited by over 401,000 people. He was one of the founding members of the Oriental Ceramic Society, and after his retirement, chairman (or president) from 1939 to 1942 in succession to George Eumorfopoulos. His successor was Sir Alan Barlow. Writing Hobson completed