Thomas Hughes was an English lawyer, judge and author. He is most famous for
his novel Tom Brown's School Days, a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby
School, which Hughes had attended. It had a lesser-known sequel, Tom Brown at
Oxford. Hughes had numerous other interests, in
particular as a Member of Parliament, in the British co-operative movement, and
in a settlement in Tennessee reflecting his values.
Early life Hughes was the second son of John
Hughes, editor of the Boscobel Tracts. Thomas Hughes was born in Uffington,
Berkshire. 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
the celebrated Thomas Arnold, a contemporary of his father at Oriel
College, Oxford. 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, and graduated B.A. in
1845. At Oxford, he played cricket for the university team in the annual
University Match against Cambridge University, also at Lord's, and a match
that is still now regarded as first-class cricket.
Legal career Hughes was called to the bar in 1848,
became Queen's Counsel in 1869 and a bencher in 1870. He was appointed to a
county court judgeship in the Chester district in July 1882.
Social interests A committed social reformer, Hughes
became involved in the Christian socialism movement led by Frederick
Maurice, which he joined in 1848. 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. Hughes gave evidence in 1850 to a House
of Commons committee on savings. In so doing he participated in a Christian
Socialist initiative, which led shortly to the Industrial and Provident
Societies Partnership Act 1852, and the emergence of the industrial and
provident society. The Act was the work of Robert Aglionby Slaney, with whom
Hughes worked in alliance. Hughes was involved also in the
formation of some early trade unions, and helped finance the printing of
Liberal publications; and acted as the first President of the Co-operative
Congress in 1869, serving on the Co-operative Central Board. He invested
with William Romaine Callender in co-operative mills, in 1866.
In politics Hughes was elected to Parliament as a
Liberal for Lambeth, and for Frome. He stood as candidate in 1874 for
Marylebone in 1874, but dropped out just before the election, despite support
from Octavia Hill. The context for the end of his political career was the
unpopularity with Hughes's Frome constituents of his support for the
Elementary Education Act 1870. As an MP Hughes worked on trade union
legislation, but was not in a position to have major changes passed. He had
greater success in improving the legal position of co-operatives, which in
particular became able to operate as a limited company. The issue of legal
obstacles to the operation of labour unions was topical, and in 1867 Hughes
was made a member of a Royal Commission set up to consider the matter. Initially
he was the only one on the committee sympathetic to the union point of view;
after some lobbying he was joined by Frederic Harrison, and a concession was
made to union representatives, allowing them observer places in the proceedings.
Hughes then worked with Harrison and Robert Applegarth to diminish the effect
of some of the testimony from employers. The outcome of this Commission was that
Harrison, Hughes and Lord Lichfield produced a minority report, recommending
that all the legal restrictions should be dropped. Then the matter was raised
again in a second Commission, at the end of Hughes's time in Parliament. At that
point Alexander Macdonald used a minority report to refer back to
Hughes's earlier view; but Hughes signed the majority report. It advocated
amendment of the Master and Servant Act 1867, but little substantive change to
the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1871 and the law of conspiracy.
Later life In 1878–9 Hughes began writing The
Manual for Co-operators, with Vansittart Neale, for the Co-operative Congress. As
a side-product he developed an interest in the model village. 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
utopian living for the younger sons of the English gentry. It followed closely
on the failed colony Buckthorn, established by another Englishman
Charles Lempriere, in western Virginia; this settlement had supposedly been
suggested by Hughes. Rugby was also unsuccessful in its own terms, but still
exists and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Hughes was also a prominent figure in the anti-opium movement, and a member of
the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade.
At the end of the 1880s Hughes clashed with John Thomas Whitehead Mitchell of
the Co-operative Wholesale Society, over the vertical integration Mitchell
favoured for the Society. Hughes died in 1896 aged 73, at Brighton, of heart
failure, and was buried there. Works
While living at Wimbledon, Hughes wrote his famous story Tom Brown's School
Days, which was published in April 1857. He is associated with the novelists of
the "muscular school", a loose classification but centred on the
fiction of the Crimean War period. Although Hughes had never been a member
of the sixth form at Rugby, his impressions of the headmaster Thomas
Arnold were reverent. Hughes also wrote The Scouring of the
White Horse, Tom Brown at Oxford, Religio Laici, Life of Alfred the Great
and the Memoir of a Brother. His brother was George Hughes, whom the character of
Tom Brown was based upon. Family
In 1847, Hughes married Frances Ford, daughter of Rev. James Ford, and niece
of Richard Ford, and they settled in 1853 at Wimbledon. Their house there was
built by the North London Working Builders' Association, a Christian
Socialist co-operative; and was shared with J. M. F. Ludlow and his family;
Ludlow already shared barristers' chambers with Hughes, and the
arrangement lasted four years. There were five sons and four daughters of the
marriage. Lilian Hughes perished in the sinking of
the RMS Titanic in 1912. The youngest child Mary Hughes was a well known Poor
Law guardian and volunteer visitor to the local Poor Law infirmary and
children's home. Legacy
A Hughes Scholarship was founded at Oriel College, Oxford. It was a closed
award, open only to members, or sons of members, of some co-operative
organisations. The first scholar was elected to Oriel in 1884. It was later
combined with an award honouring Vansittart Neale.
A statue of Hughes stands outside Rugby School Library: the sculptor was Thomas
Brock, and the statue was unveiled in 1899. 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. Bibliography
= Fiction = Tom Brown's School Days
The Scouring of The White Horse Tom Brown at Oxford
= Non-fiction = Religio Laici
A Layman's Faith Alfred the Great. In the Sunday Library
for Household Reading, this was a largely political work, and was history
verging on fiction. Memoir of a Brother
The Old Church; What Shall We Do With It?
The Manliness of Christ True Manliness
Rugby Tennessee Memoir of Daniel Macmillan
G.T.T. Gone to Texas Notes for Boys
Life and Times of Peter Cooper James Fraser Second Bishop of Manchester
David Livingstone Vacation Rambles
Early Memories for the Children References
This entry incorporates some public-domain text originally from the
1911 Encyclopædia Britannica but has been heavily edited.
The Aftermath with Autobiography of the Author
Further reading Kidd, Bruce. "Muscular Christianity and
Value-centred Sport: the Legacy of Tom Brown in Canada". International Journal
of the History of Sport 23: 701–713. doi:10.1080/09523360600673096.
External links Works by Thomas Hughes at Project
Gutenberg Works by or about Thomas Hughes at
Internet Archive Works by Thomas Hughes at LibriVox
Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Thomas Hughes
Historic Rugby, Tennessee Thomas Hughes correspondence collection
is held at The National Co-operative Archive, Manchester.
Details of Hughes family CricketArchive: Thomas Hughes