23 Facts About Thomas Hughes

Thomas Hughes was an English lawyer, judge, politician and author.

Thomas Hughes is most famous for his novel Tom Brown's School Days, a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended.

Thomas Hughes was the second son of John Thomas Hughes, editor of the Boscobel Tracts, and was born in Uffington, Berkshire.

Thomas Hughes had six brothers, and one sister, Jane Senior, who later became Britain's first female civil servant.

Thomas Hughes excelled at sports rather than in scholarship, and his school career culminated in a cricket match at Lord's Cricket Ground.

Thomas Hughes was called to the bar in 1848, became Queen's Counsel in 1869 and a bencher in 1870.

Thomas Hughes was appointed to a county court judgeship in the Chester district in July 1882.

Thomas Hughes gave evidence in 1850 to a House of Commons committee on savings.

The Act was the work of Robert Aglionby Slaney, with whom Thomas Hughes worked in alliance.

Thomas Hughes was involved 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.

Thomas Hughes invested with William Romaine Callender in co-operative mills, in 1866.

Thomas Hughes was elected to Parliament as a Liberal for Lambeth, and for Frome.

Thomas Hughes stood as candidate in 1874 for Marylebone in 1874, but dropped out just before the election, despite support from Octavia Hill.

Thomas Hughes 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 Thomas Hughes was made a member of a Royal Commission set up to consider the matter.

Thomas Hughes then worked with Harrison and Robert Applegarth to diminish the effect of some of the testimony from employers.

Thomas Hughes was a prominent figure in the anti-opium movement, and a member of the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade.

Thomas Hughes died in 1896 aged 73, at Brighton, of heart failure, and was buried there.

Thomas Hughes is associated with the novelists of the "muscular school", a loose classification but centred on the fiction of the Crimean War period.

Thomas Hughes wrote The Scouring of the White Horse, Tom Brown at Oxford, Religio Laici, Life of Alfred the Great and the Memoir of a Brother.

In 1847, Thomas Hughes married Frances Ford, daughter of Rev James Ford, and niece of Richard Ford, and they settled in 1853 at Wimbledon.

Lilian Thomas Hughes perished in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912.

The youngest child Mary Thomas Hughes was a well known Poor Law guardian and volunteer visitor to the local Poor Law infirmary and children's home.