Home › Contents › Thomas Hughes

Thomas Hughes

THOMAS HUGHES was born October 20, 1822, at Uffington, Berks. He died on March 22, 1896. In 1834 his father sent Tom to Rugby to be under the charge of Doctor Arnold; the doctor and the father had been fellow-students at Oriel College, Oxford. Both school and master were made world-known by the book, "Tom Brown's School Days." Tom Hughes must have been very much the same sort of schoolboy as the hero of the story, but in fact, George, his brother, was the original of Tom, as Dean Stanley was the original of Arthur. Thomas Hughes followed in his father's footsteps at Oriel; he was later called to the bar, and eventually was appointed a country court judge. His life was one of true service to humanity; Frederick Maurice was the great influence that worked upon him, and he was of the group, along with Charles Kingsley, who devoted themselves to the cause of the Workingmen's College. He sat in Parliament, always a devoted friend of his friends, the workingmen; he tried his hand at an idealistic colony, called Rugby, in Tennessee; he was a frequent visitor to America, and was a great friend and admirer of James Russell Lowell, whose influence over him is shown in the frequent quotations in his books. His other volumes included a sequel to "Tom Brown at Oxford," "Religio Laici," and his "Memoir of a Brother." But he will always be remembered as the sane and great-hearted author who has understood something of the soul of a school-boy, and who has written the greatest book in English of the school-boy's life.