Arthur Hugh Clough

1819-61

Clough was the son of a Liverpool cotton merchant. He studied at Rugby under the direction of Thomas Arnold, and there made friends with Matthew Arnold. He went from Rugby to Oxford University, where he was influenced by the Catholic-leaning The Tractarian Movement, of which John Henry Newman was a major proponent in Oxford at the time. Clough eventually experienced a religious crisis. His resulting skepticism about the creeds of the Church of England led him to resign from his position as a Fellow at Oxford, since he would have been required to subscribe to the 39 Articles of Anglican doctrine. Clough was strongly influenced by Carlyle and involved both intellectually and practically--he helped out in soup kitchens--in the "Condition of England" question. He wrote on social problems and traveled in 1848 to Paris and in 1849 to Italy to witness the revolutions there. On his return he held for a few years a professorship at the Unitarian University College, which he also resigned, and eventually took up a position with the Education Office in 1853. His death at the age of 42 was much mourned by those who had known and expected much of him.

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