HUGHES, THOMAS (1822-1896), English lawyer and author, second son of John Hughes of Donnington Priory, editor of The Boscobel Tracts (183o), was born at Uffington, Berks. He was educated at Rugby school under Dr. Arnold, and at Oriel college, Oxford. He was called to the bar in 1848, became Q.C. in 1869, a bencher in 187o, and was appointed to a county court judgeship in the Chester district in July 1882. While at Lincoln's Inn he came under the dominating influence of his life, that of Frederick Denison Maurice. In 1848 he joined the Christian Socialists, under Maurice's banner, among his closest allies being Charles Kingsley. In Jan. 1854 he was one of the original pro moters of the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street, of which he became principal after Maurice's death. Hughes sat in parliament from 1865 to 1874, and introduced a trades union bill which, however, only reached its second reading. On one of his visits to America in 1879 he planned a co-operative settlement, "Rugby," in Tennessee, which involved him in money losses. In 1848 Hughes had married Frances, niece of Richard Ford, of Spanish Handbook fame. They settled in 1853 at Wimbledon, and there was written his famous story, Tom Brown's School Days (1857) "by an Old Boy." Tom Brown did a great deal to fix the English concept of what a public school should be. Hughes also wrote The Scouring of the White Horse (1859), Tom Brown at Oxford (1861) , Religio Laici (1868) and Life of Alfred the Great (1869) . He died at Brighton on March 22, 1896.