Hughes, Thomas (1822-1896)

English writer. He is best known as the author of Tom Brown's School Days (1857), a story of Rugby School under Thomas Arnold, with an underlying religious sense, which was the forerunner of the modern school story. It had a sequel, Tom Brown at Oxford (1861).

Hughes was born in Uffington, educated at Oxford, and became a barrister in 1848. He was a founder of the Working Men's College, and its principal from 1872-83. He was a Liberal member of Parliament from 1865-74, and was a county-court judge from 1882.