Michael Hobbs

Michael Frederick Hobbs was born on 28 February 1937. He was educated at Eton College. Like many young men of his generation he entered the army through national service, joining the Grenadier Guards in 1956.

Hobbs was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards as a second lieutenant on 14 April 1956 to fulfil his national service obligation. He was promoted to lieutenant on 28 February 1958 and removed from the national service list, becoming a regular officer. He was promoted to captain on 28 February 1964 and to major on 31 December 1969.

Between 1974 and 1977 he served on the Directing Staff of the Staff College, Camberley, where future senior officers were trained. In 1979, during the Troubles, he was posted to Northern Ireland, and he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire that October, having been made an MBE in 1974.

He was promoted to colonel on 30 June 1980 and to brigadier on 31 December 1981, and in 1982 he was appointed Commander of the 39th Infantry Brigade. He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1982 Birthday Honours. In 1983 he was posted again to Northern Ireland on the staff and was mentioned in dispatches. He was Director of Army Public Relations at the Ministry of Defence from January 1984 to July 1985, and General Officer Commanding the 4th Armoured Division from December 1985 to November 1987. He was promoted to major-general in March 1986, with seniority from June 1984, and retired from the army on 23 February 1988.

After leaving the army Hobbs became Director of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, a post he held from 1988 to 1998. From 1995 he was also a director of the Outward Bound Trust. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of St John in 1994 and a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in the 1998 Birthday Honours. He was a director of the London Law Trust, a grant making charitable trust, and deputy chairman of the development committee of the College of St George at Windsor Castle.

In 2000 he was appointed Governor of the Military Knights of Windsor, the small body of retired officers who receive accommodation at Windsor Castle and support the Order of the Garter and the services of St George's Chapel. He led the Military Knights in the annual Garter Day procession and retired from the post in July 2012, when he was succeeded by Lieutenant General Peter Pearson.

Hobbs was married to Tessa, Lady Hobbs, who became known as a garden designer.

Sir Michael Hobbs died peacefully on 19 October 2026, aged 89. His family announced his death in a notice in The Telegraph. The cause of death was not made public. The notice said his funeral service would be held at 12 noon on 12 November 2026 at the Church of St Nicholas in Kimmeridge, Dorset, and that all were welcome.

Hobbs belonged to the generation of officers who entered the army through national service and stayed to reach senior command, serving through the Troubles in Northern Ireland and commanding an armoured division in Germany during the Cold War. In his later career he helped run two of Britain's best known youth development organisations, the Duke of Edinburgh's Award and the Outward Bound Trust, and for twelve years he led the Military Knights of Windsor, one of the oldest ceremonial bodies attached to the Crown.