Arthur Hugh Clough

Arthur Hugh Clough (January 1, 1819 – November 13, 1861) was an English poet, and the brother of Anne Jemima Clough.

Related Topics:
January 1 - 1819 - November 13 - 1861 - English - Poet - Anne Jemima Clough

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He came of a good Welsh stock by his father, James Butler Clough, and of a Yorkshire one by his mother, Anne Perfect. In 1822 his father, a Liverpool cotton merchant, moved to the United States, and Clough's childhood was spent mainly at Charleston, South Carolina, much under the influence of his mother, a cultivated woman, full of moral and imaginative enthusiasm. In 1828 the family paid a visit to England, and Clough was left at school at Chester, whence he passed in 1829 to Rugby School, then under the sway of Thomas Arnold, whose strenuous views on life and education he accepted to the full. Cut off to a large degree from home relations, he passed a somewhat reserved and solitary boyhood, devoted to the well-being of the school and to early literary efforts in the Rugby Magazine. In 1836 his parents returned to Liverpool, and in 1837 he went with a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. Here his contemporaries included Benjamin Jowett, A.P. Stanley, J.C. Shairp, W.G. Ward, Frederick Temple and Matthew Arnold.

Related Topics:
Welsh - Yorkshire - 1822 - Liverpool - United States - Charleston, South Carolina - 1828 - Chester - 1829 - Rugby School - Thomas Arnold - 1836 - Balliol College, Oxford - Benjamin Jowett - A.P. Stanley - J.C. Shairp - W.G. Ward - Frederick Temple - Matthew Arnold

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Oxford, in 1837, was in the full swirl of the High Church movement led by John Henry Newman. Clough was for a time carried away by the flood, and, although be recovered his equilibrium, it was not without an amount of mental disturbance and an expenditure of academic time, which perhaps accounted for his failure to obtain more than a second class in his final examination. He missed a Balliol fellowship, but obtained one at Oriel, with a tutorship, and lived the Oxford life of study, speculation, lectures and reading-parties for some years longer. Gradually, however, certain sceptical tendencies with regard to the current religious and social order grew upon him to such an extent as to render his position as an orthodox teacher of youth irksome, and in 1848 he resigned it. The immediate feeling of relief showed itself in buoyant, if thoughtful, literature, and he published poems both new and old. Then he travelled, seeing Paris in revolution and Rome in siege, and in the autumn of 1849 took up new duties as principal of University Hall, a hostel for students at University College, London.

Related Topics:
1837 - High Church - John Henry Newman - Oriel - Oxford - 1848 - Paris in revolution - Rome in siege - 1849 - University College, London

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He soon found that he disliked London, in spite of the friendship of the Carlyles, nor did the atmosphere of Unitarianism prove any more congenial than that of Anglicanism to his critical and at bottom conservative temper. A prospect of a post in Sydney led him to engage himself to Miss Blanche Mary Shore Smith, and when it disappeared he left England in 1852, and went, encouraged by Ralph Waldo Emerson, to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Here he remained some months, lecturing and translating Plutarch for the booksellers, until in 1853 the offer of an examinership in the Education Office brought him to London once more. He married, and pursued a steady official career, diversified only by an appointment in 1856 as secretary to a commission sent to study certain aspects of foreign military education.

Related Topics:
London - Carlyle - Unitarianism - Anglicanism - Sydney - 1852 - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Cambridge, Massachusetts - Plutarch - 1853 - 1856

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At this, as at every period of his life, he enjoyed the warm respect and admiration of a small circle of friends, who learnt to look to him alike for unselfish sympathy and for spiritual and practical wisdom. In 1860 his health began to fail. He visited first Malvern and Freshwater, and then the East, France and Switzerland, in search of recovery, and finally came to Florence, where he was struck down in 1861 by malaria and paralysis. He is buried in a tomb in the 'English' Cemetery in Florence that his wife and sister had Susan Horner design from Jean-François Champollion's book on Egyptian hieroglyphs. Matthew Arnold wrote upon him the exquisite lament of Thyrsis.

Related Topics:
1860 - Malvern - Freshwater - France - Switzerland - Florence - 1861 - Malaria - 'English' Cemetery - Jean-François Champollion - Matthew Arnold

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