Thomas Hughes
Encyclopedia
Thomas Hughes was an English
lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's Schooldays
(1857), a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School
, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford
(1861).
, Berkshire
(now Oxfordshire). He had six brothers, and one sister, Jane Senior
who later became Britain's first female civil servant. At the age of eight he was sent to Twyford School
, a preparatory public school near Winchester, where he remained until the age of eleven. In February 1834 he went to Rugby School
, which was then under Dr Thomas Arnold
, a contemporary of his father at Oriel College, Oxford, and the most influential British schoolmaster of the 19th century. Though never a member of the sixth form, his impressions of the headmaster were intensely reverent, and Arnold was afterwards idealized as the perfect schoolmaster in Hughes's novel. Hughes excelled at sports rather than in scholarship, and his school career culminated in a cricket
match at Lord's Cricket Ground
. In 1842 he went on to Oriel College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1845. He was called to the bar in 1848, became Queen's Counsel
in 1869 and a bencher in 1870, and was appointed to a county court judgeship in the Chester district in July 1882.
Hughes was elected to Parliament as a Liberal
for Lambeth
(1865–68), and for Frome
(1868–74). An avid social reformer, he became interested in the Christian socialism
movement led by Frederick Maurice, which he had joined in 1848. He was involved in the formation of some early trade union
s and helped finance the printing of Liberal
publications, as well as acting as the first President of the Co-operative Congress
in 1869 and serving on the Co-operative Central Board. In January 1854 he was one of the founders of the Working Men's College
in Great Ormond Street, and was the College's principal from 1872 to 1883.
In 1880, he acquired the ownership of Franklin W. Smith
's Plateau City and founded a settlement in America — Rugby, Tennessee
— which was designed as an experiment in utopia
n living for the younger sons of the English gentry, although this later proved largely unsuccessful. While his original intent was unsuccessful, Rugby still exists and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places
.
In 1847, Hughes was called to the bar, and married Frances Ford. They settled in 1853 at Wimbledon
and while living there Hughes wrote his famous story Tom Brown's Schooldays
, which was published in April 1857.
Hughes also wrote The Scouring of the White Horse (1859), Tom Brown at Oxford (1861), Religio Laici (1868), Life of Alfred the Great
(1869) and the Memoir of a Brother. His brother was George Hughes, whom the character of Tom Brown was based upon.
Hughes died in 1896 aged 73, at Brighton
, of heart failure; and is buried there. His daughter, Lilian, perished in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912. His other daughter, Mary, was a well known Poor Law
guardian and volunteer visitor to the local Poor Law infirmary and children's home.
A statue of Hughes (pictured) stands outside Rugby School Library. It has been observed that although the sculptor has meticulously crafted a row of buttons on the right hand side of the statue's jacket, there are no corresponding buttonholes on the left hand side. Local folklore has it that when this omission was pointed out to the sculptor, a known perfectionist who suffered from depression, he was so dismayed that he was driven to commit suicide. This is untrue. The sculptor was Thomas Brock
, the statue was unveiled in 1899, and Brock died of natural causes in 1922.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
lawyer and author. He is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's Schooldays
Tom Brown's Schooldays
Tom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s; Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
(1857), a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School
Rugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...
, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford
Tom Brown at Oxford
Tom Brown at Oxford is a novel by Thomas Hughes, first published in 1861. It is a sequel to the better-known Tom Brown's Schooldays...
(1861).
Biography
Hughes was the second son of John Hughes, editor of the Boscobel Tracts (1830). Thomas Hughes was born in UffingtonUffington, Oxfordshire
Uffington is a village and civil parish about south of Faringdon. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire. Uffington is most commonly known as the location of the Uffington White Horse hill figure....
, Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
(now Oxfordshire). He had six brothers, and one sister, Jane Senior
Jane Senior
Jane Nassau Senior was Britain's first female civil servant,, and co-founder of the Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants ....
who later became Britain's first female civil servant. At the age of eight he was sent to Twyford School
Twyford School
Twyford School is a co-educational, independent, preparatory boarding and day school, located in the village of Twyford, Hampshire.-History:Twyford claims to be the oldest preparatory school in the United Kingdom....
, a preparatory public school near Winchester, where he remained until the age of eleven. In February 1834 he went to Rugby School
Rugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...
, which was then under Dr Thomas Arnold
Thomas Arnold
Dr Thomas Arnold was a British educator and historian. Arnold was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement...
, a contemporary of his father at Oriel College, Oxford, and the most influential British schoolmaster of the 19th century. Though never a member of the sixth form, his impressions of the headmaster were intensely reverent, and Arnold was afterwards idealized as the perfect schoolmaster in Hughes's novel. Hughes excelled at sports rather than in scholarship, and his school career culminated in a cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
match at Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground
Lord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
. In 1842 he went on to Oriel College, Oxford, and graduated B.A. in 1845. He was called to the bar in 1848, became Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
in 1869 and a bencher in 1870, and was appointed to a county court judgeship in the Chester district in July 1882.
Hughes was elected to Parliament as a Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
for Lambeth
Lambeth (UK Parliament constituency)
Lambeth was a parliamentary constituency centred on the Lambeth district of South London. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the bloc vote system.-History:...
(1865–68), and for Frome
Frome (UK Parliament constituency)
Frome was a constituency centred on the town of Frome in Somerset. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832, until it was abolished for the 1950 general election...
(1868–74). An avid social reformer, he became interested in the Christian socialism
Christian socialism
Christian socialism generally refers to those on the Christian left whose politics are both Christian and socialist and who see these two philosophies as being interrelated. This category can include Liberation theology and the doctrine of the social gospel...
movement led by Frederick Maurice, which he had joined in 1848. He was involved in the formation of some early trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s and helped finance the printing of Liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
publications, as well as acting as the first President of the Co-operative Congress
Co-operative Congress
The Co-operative Congress is the national conference of the UK Co-operative Movement. The first of the modern congresses took place in 1869 following a series of meetings called the "Owenite Congress" in the 1830s...
in 1869 and serving on the Co-operative Central Board. In January 1854 he was one of the founders of the Working Men's College
Working Men's College
The Working Men's College- WMC, being among the earliest adult education institutions established in the United Kingdom, is Europe's oldest extant centre for adult education and perhaps one of its smallest...
in Great Ormond Street, and was the College's principal from 1872 to 1883.
In 1880, he acquired the ownership of Franklin W. Smith
Franklin W. Smith
Franklin Webster Smith was an idealistic reformer who made his fortune as a Boston hardware merchant. He was an early abolitionist, defendant in a civilian court-martial in 1864, author, and architectural enthusiast who proposed transforming Washington, D.C...
's Plateau City and founded a settlement in America — Rugby, Tennessee
Rugby, Tennessee
Rugby is an unincorporated community in Morgan and Scott counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Founded in 1880 by English author Thomas Hughes, Rugby was built as an experimental utopian colony. While Hughes's experiment largely failed, a small community lingered at Rugby throughout the 20th...
— which was designed as an experiment in utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n living for the younger sons of the English gentry, although this later proved largely unsuccessful. While his original intent was unsuccessful, Rugby still exists and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
In 1847, Hughes was called to the bar, and married Frances Ford. They settled in 1853 at Wimbledon
Wimbledon, London
Wimbledon is a district in the south west area of London, England, located south of Wandsworth, and east of Kingston upon Thames. It is situated within Greater London. It is home to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and New Wimbledon Theatre, and contains Wimbledon Common, one of the largest areas...
and while living there Hughes wrote his famous story Tom Brown's Schooldays
Tom Brown's Schooldays
Tom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s; Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
, which was published in April 1857.
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899.Alfred is noted for his defence of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England against the Vikings, becoming the only English monarch still to be accorded the epithet "the Great". Alfred was the first King of the West Saxons to style himself...
(1869) and the Memoir of a Brother. His brother was George Hughes, whom the character of Tom Brown was based upon.
Hughes died in 1896 aged 73, at Brighton
Brighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, of heart failure; and is buried there. His daughter, Lilian, perished in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912. His other daughter, Mary, was a well known Poor Law
Poor Law
The English Poor Laws were a system of poor relief which existed in England and Wales that developed out of late-medieval and Tudor-era laws before being codified in 1587–98...
guardian and volunteer visitor to the local Poor Law infirmary and children's home.
A statue of Hughes (pictured) stands outside Rugby School Library. It has been observed that although the sculptor has meticulously crafted a row of buttons on the right hand side of the statue's jacket, there are no corresponding buttonholes on the left hand side. Local folklore has it that when this omission was pointed out to the sculptor, a known perfectionist who suffered from depression, he was so dismayed that he was driven to commit suicide. This is untrue. The sculptor was Thomas Brock
Thomas Brock
Sir Thomas Brock KCB RA was an English sculptor.- Life :Brock was born in Worcester, attended the School of Design in Worcester and then undertook an apprenticeship in modelling at the Worcester Royal Porcelain Works. In 1866 he became a pupil of the sculptor John Henry Foley. He married in 1869,...
, the statue was unveiled in 1899, and Brock died of natural causes in 1922.
Fiction
- Tom Brown's SchooldaysTom Brown's SchooldaysTom Brown's Schooldays is a novel by Thomas Hughes. The story is set at Rugby School, a public school for boys, in the 1830s; Hughes attended Rugby School from 1834 to 1842...
(1857) - The Scouring of The White HorseUffington White HorseThe Uffington White Horse is a highly stylised prehistoric hill figure, 110 m long , formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk...
(1859) - Tom Brown at OxfordTom Brown at OxfordTom Brown at Oxford is a novel by Thomas Hughes, first published in 1861. It is a sequel to the better-known Tom Brown's Schooldays...
(1861)
Non-fiction
- Religio Laici (1861)
- A Layman's Faith (1868)
- Alfred the Great (1870)
- Memoir of a Brother (1873)
- The Old Church; What Shall We Do With It? (1878)
- The Manliness of Christ (1879)
- True Manliness (1880)
- Rugby Tennessee (1881)
- Memoir of Daniel Macmillan (1882)
- G.T.T. Gone to Texas (1884)
- Notes for Boys (1885)
- Life and Times of Peter Cooper (1886)
- James Fraser Second Bishop of Manchester (1887)
- David Livingstone (1889)
- Vacation Rambles (1895)
- Early Memories for the Children (1899)