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Hugh Price Hughes

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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HUGH PRICE HUGHES (1847-1902), British Nonconformist divine, was born at Carmarthen on the 8th of February 1847, the son of a surgeon. He began to preach when he was fourteen, and in 1865 entered Richmond College to study for the Wesleyan Methodist ministry under the Rev. Alfred Barrett, one of whose daughters he married in 1873. He graduated at London University in 1869, the last year of his residence. He established in 1887 the West London Mission, holding popular services on Sunday in St James's Hall, Piccadilly, when he preached from time to time on the housing of the poor, sweating, gambling and other subjects of social interest. In connexion with this mission he founded a sisterhood to forward the social side of the work, which was presided over by Mrs Hughes. He had started in 1885 the Methodist Times, and rapidly made it a leading organ of Nonconformist opinion. He was a born fighter, and carried the fire and eloquence he showed on the platform and in the pulpit into journalism. He supported Mr W. T. Stead in 1885, as he had earlier supported Mrs Josephine Butler in a similar cause; he attacked the trade in alcohol; was an anti-vivisectionist; he advocated arbitration; and his vehement attacks on Sir Charles Dilke and Charles Stewart Parnell originated the phrase the "Nonconformist conscience." He differed strongly, however, from a large section of Nonconformist opinion in his defence of the South African War. He was long regarded with some distrust by the more conservative section of his own church, but in 1898 he was made president of the Wesleyan Conference. He raised large sums for church work, amounting it is said to over a quarter of a million of money. His energies were largely devoted to co-operation among the various Nonconformist bodies, and he was one of the founders and most energetic members of the National Council of the Evangelical Free Churches. He had long been in failing health when he died suddenly in London on the 17th of November 1902.

See his Life (1904) by his daughter, Dorothea Price Hughes.