521 Thomas Hughes

Constituency : Lambeth  1865-68, Frome  1868-74

Thomas  displaced  James  Lawrence  at  Lambeth. He  was  strongly  supported  by  the  Reform  League  and  the  trade  unions.

Thomas  was  the  son  of  an  editor. He  was  educated  at Rugby  and  Oxford. He  was  a  keen  cricketer  and  boxer. He  became  a  barrister. In  1848   he  joined  the  Christian  Socialist  movement. In  1854  he  was  a  co-founder  of  the  Working  Men's  College. In  1857  he  published  his  classic  novel  based  on  his  school  experiences  Tom  Brown's  Schooldays.  He  wrote  two  other  novels  before  his  election  but  thereafter  concentrated  on  non-fiction.

Thomas  was  an  avowed  Radical. He  was  involved  in  the  formation  of  trade  unions  and  financed  Liberal  publications. He  was a  member  of  the  Society  for  the  Suppression  of  the  Opium  Trade. His  first  Commons  speech  supported  going  to  arbitration  on  the  Alabama  question.  He  was  independent -minded, regarding  himself  neither  as  a  constituency  delegate  nor  a  party  man. He  opposed  the  secret  ballot. He  supported  pubic  grants  for  urban  housing  projects. He  sat  on  the  royal  commission  on  trade  unions  of  1867-8  looking  into  intimidation  and  signed  the  minority  pro-union  report. He  was  also  used  as  a  government  arbitrator  in  a  number  of  disputes.

Thomas  switched  to Frome  for  the  1868  election  fearing  that  his  support  of  the  licensing  laws  and  consumer  protection  would  cost  him  the  support  of  the  small  shopkeepers  and  publicans  in  Lambeth. He  was  more  isolated  in  the  new  Parliament  as  the  pro-labour  faction  became  too  extreme  for  him  and  his  Anglican  leanings  kept  him  apart  from  the Nonconformists. He  allied  with  the  Tories  in  the  National  Education  Union.

In  1869  Thomas  became  the  first  President  of  the  Co-Operative  Congress. He  lamented  the  switch  in  focus  from  production  co-operatives  to  consumer co-operatives.

In  1873  Thomas  spoke  at  a  public  meeting  in  Frome  and  was  heckled  for  his  support  of  the  licensing  laws. Thomas  doubted  that  Frome  would  return  him  in  1874 so  he  switched  again  to  Marylebone. He  was  not  welcomed  by  the  local  Liberals  who  selected  Daniel  Grant  instead. His  supporters  appealed  to  the  party  leadership  for  arbitration  but  this  came  out  in  favour  of  Grant. Thomas  did  not  withdraw  so  there  were  three  Liberals  in  the  field. The  result  was  a  Tory  topping  the  poll  and  Thomas  receiving  a  derisory  294  votes. He  complained  in  1878  that  the  new  politics  meant  that  MPs  were  "at  the  mercy  of  a  party  organisation  with  a  cut-and-dried  bundle  of  pledges  to  be  swallowed  on  pain  of  party  ostracism". He  tried  to  get  the  nomination  for  Salisbury  in  1880  but  failed  partly  due  to  opposition  from  the  tradesmen's  Anti-Co-operative  Society.

In  1874  Thomas  accepted  appointment  to  another  royal  commission  on  the  trade  unions  despite  previously  backing  the  Congress's  opposition  to  it.

In  1880  Thomas  founded  a  utopian  settlement  for  the  younger  sons  of  gentry  in  the  US, Rugby Tennessee , but  it  was  not  a  great  success  and  had  ceased  to  operate  by  1891. His  brother  William  described  it  as  "the  last  of  the  many castles  in  Spain  which  he  had, always  with  some  high  and  unselfish  object  in  view, helped  to  build during  his  life".

Thomas  sunk  a  lot  of  his  money  into  the  project  and  had  to  get  himself  appointed  a  county  court  judge  in  1882  to  rescue  his  position. He  resigned  from  the  Co-Operative  Union.

In  1886  he  became  a  Liberal  Unionist.

He  died  of  lung  failure  in  1896  aged  73. His  daughter  Lillian  perished  on  the  Titanic.