Thomas Smart Hughes

He received his early education from John Spencer Cobbold, first at Nuneaton grammar school, and later as a private pupil at Wilby, Suffolk.

In 1801 he was sent to Shrewsbury School, then under the head-mastership of Samuel Butler, and in October 1803 entered as a pensioner of St John's College, Cambridge.

In the same year he was elected to a foundation fellowship at St John's, and in December 1812 accepted the post of travelling tutor to Robert Townley Parker of Cuerden Hall, Lancashire.

On 26 February 1827 he was collated by Bishop Marsh to a prebendal stall at Peterborough Cathedral In the same year he was an unsuccessful candidate for the head-mastership of Rugby School.

In 1832 Hughes was presented by the dean and chapter of Peterborough to the rectory of Fiskerton, Lincolnshire, and in the same year succeeded to the family living of Hardwick.

He won the Seatonian prize for 1817 with a poem on Belshazzar's Feast; these verses inspired John Martin's painting on the subject.

[4] The first edition was translated into French by the author: Voyage à Janina en Albanie, par la Sicile et la Grèce, 2 vols., 1821;[5] A German translation was published the same year in Jena, under the title Reise durch Sicilien und Griechenland nach Janina in Albanien.

His major work, the continuation of David Hume and Tobias Smollett's History of England from the accession of George III, was undertaken in 1834, at the request of A. J. Valpy.

It was written quickly in monthly issues; but Hughes republished it with corrections, and with a large part actually rewritten.