He was a British SAS officer during the Second World War, and was influential in the preservation of Liverpool's Victorian and Edwardian architectural heritage.
[1] On the outbreak of war Hughes volunteered for the Royal Artillery and was posted to 208 Anti-Aircraft Training Regiment before obtaining his commission in 1940.
[2] Following the Siege of Malta, in 1942, Hughes joined the newly created 2nd SAS based at Philippeville, Algeria and began carrying out sabotage operations in Italy.
[1] On 12 January 1944, Hughes and four others took off from an American airfield in southern Italy for Operation Pomegranate in support of the forthcoming allied landings at Anzio.
The group was scattered after coming into contact with a German sentry, and although Hughes and the raid commander Major Tony Widdrington found each other, the other members could not be located.
Hughes later escaped, by jumping from a train, along with two other men and with assistance from local partisans reached Allied forces on 10 May 1944.
[2] After spending some time at an officers' rest camp Hughes returned to England to rejoin the 2nd SAS at Prestwick, Ayrshire.
[6] Photographs attributed to JQ Hughes are also held by the Conway Library, whose archive of primarily architectural images is in the process of being digitised under the wider Courtauld Connects project.