Thomas Hughes (1822-1896) was born at Uffington, Berks, and educated at Rugby and Oriel College, Oxford. He was called to the bar in 1848, becoming a county court judge in 1882. He was a Christian Socialist and supported trade unionism and helped to found the Working Men's College and a settlement in Tennessee, USA. He wrote a number of biographies and social studies, but he is primarily remembered as the author of the semi-autobiographical public school classic, Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857).
