Thomas Hughes became a convert to the Liberal movement, which shortly after succeeded in repealing a tariff that had been the cause of such wide-spread misery. From that day his sympathies have always been with those classes who are called to earn the least and endure the most; and when in 1848 he was admitted to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, London, he had got the name of being a radical and a reformer in politics—a name, then, rather more dreadful to steady-going, conservative English country gentlemen of the "Squire Brown" type than that of mad dog.
But long before this the young man had got over his dread of opprobrious names, and his fear of those who have nothing harder to hurl.
With a few other resolute spirits he set himself to work to organize those joint-stock industries and business enterprises which have since developed into the colossal co-operative stores of London and the cotton mills of Oldham, representing many millions of capital, the combined savings of thrifty artisans and other persons of small means.
In all this, Mr. Hughes's avowed object has been "to make England the best place for workingmen to live in that the sun ever shone upon." Whether that can be done or not in this age of the world is certainly open to question, but it is equally certain that there can be no possible harm in making the attempt. That the workingmen have appreciated the effort is evident from the fact that they elected Mr. Hughes to Parliament in 1865. It is said that ordinarily the expense of getting into the House of Commons—an unpaid body—averages about $75,000, which the candidate or his friends must be prepared to spend. But in Lambeth, a district of London, inhabited almost wholly by poor men, two hundred of Mr. Hughes's admirers came forward and worked night and day without receiving a single shilling of any man's money, solely with the determination of seeing their candidate succeed.
Since then, the writer of "Tom Brown's School Days" would certainly have broken down from overwork if he had not been, as he says, an "Angular Saxon" and a muscular Christian as well. During his nine years' pull in the political harness he earned the double honor of helping forward the cause of the people and at the same time he so won the regard of the Crown that he received the appointment of Queen's Counsel. While member of Parliament Mr. Hughes was likewise carrying on a large and lucrative law practice, acting as president of the Workingmen's College, which he was instrumental in founding; serving as referee in disputes between manufacturers and their employees in such a way as to get the respect and good-will of both; serving also as director in co-operative banks, coal mines, cotton mills, machine shops, grocery stores, land and building associations; besides being chief manager of the Crystal Palace company, and colonel in a volunteer rifle corps.
Yet well known as Mr. Hughes is for his manifold political and philanthropic services, he is still better known by his books. Though with him literature has been rather a recreation than a vocation, yet his fame seems destined to rest on it, and especially on his "Tom Brown," which has been pronounced "the best description of public school life that ever has been, or is ever likely to be, written." This famous work, published in 1858, was followed the next year by "The Scouring of the White Horse," a story of his favorite White Horse Hill. Three years later came "Tom Brown at Oxford," then "The Life of Alfred the Great," and lastly his "Memoirs of a Brother" and his "Manliness of Christ," besides scores, if not hundreds, of magazine and review articles and letters to London and American papers.
In 1870 Mr. Hughes made the tour of this country, receiving such a welcome from his many friends as "Tom Brown" was sure to get from both old and young. Ten years afterward he undertook to establish an English colony in the Cumberland Mountains of East Tennessee. It was called Rugby, and it was founded in the hope that it might be useful to many educated young men of good families who could find no opening worthy of their powers at home. As he said, "Of the many sad sights in England there is none sadder than this, of first-rate human material going helplessly to waste, and in too many cases beginning to sour and taint, instead of strengthening the national life." A hundred years before, Franklin had expressed the same conviction in his pithy maxim, "'Tis hard for an empty bag to stand upright." It was to fill these vacant lives with honest work and its rewards that Thomas Hughes started his emigration to the wilds of Tennessee. There, co-operation was to be tried in farming, cattle-raising, lumbering, and trade, thus saving the community of workers from that "infinite terror of not making money," which Carlyle declared was the only thing that now stirred deep fear in the souls of his countrymen. Many an ardent young man fresh from the old Rugby of "Tom Brown" fame fondly hoped that the new, western Rugby might enable him to say with Tennyson's "Northern Farmer," as he listened to the music of his horse's hoofs on the road home from market,—
"Proputty, proputty, proputty,—that's what I 'ears 'em saäy";
but, unfortunately, the "proputty" will not always come even at the bidding of hard work and active brains. The Tennessee enterprise has not commanded success, though doubtless, as Addison would say, it has done better—it has deserved it.
Since the inauguration of the movement Mr. Hughes has been appointed county judge of Cheshire, and now makes his home in the quaint old town of Chester, the county seat. He is verging on the limit of that threescore and ten which the Psalmist allotted as the measure of human life. Few men in our day can look back over a busier or more fruitful career. The awkward and timid boy has shown the world what rare force of self-conquest, of persevering growth, of grappling with difficulties, and of successful achievement was to come out of that unpromising beginning. Because of this, we are all debtors to the author of "Tom Brown"; not only for his books, but still more because we see that these books are the frank expression of a brave, earnest, and untiring spirit.