Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0005-9580-7169

Date Available

4-30-2025

Year of Publication

2025

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College

Arts and Sciences

Department/School/Program

History

Faculty

Karen Petrone

Faculty

Tammy Whitlock

Faculty

Hilary Jones

Abstract

Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), used medievalism to help solve social problems of the Nineteenth Century. This contravenes the traditional view of medievalism, especially Anglo-Saxonism, since others have used it to justify the subjugation of people of lower social status, namely the poor in England, enslaved African Americans in the United States, and Indians under British rule.

While the use of medievalism is veiled in Hughes’ work, the subtext of Tom Brown’s Schooldays demonstrated Hughes’ Anglo-Saxonism. Tom Brown and the intertextual material surrounding his narrative exhibit the characteristics of Anglo-Saxonism through cultural primitivism, the concept of allodial, and anti-Norman sentiment.

Beyond this, Hughes viewed American slavery as similar to Anglo-Saxon slavery, which made it the responsibility of every man and government to free the enslaved. Because of this, Hughes was a fervent abolitionist, as can be seen in Hughes’ book on Alfred the Great, indicating that Hughes’s abolitionism was part of a larger period of rapid change in nineteenth-century English, anti-slavery sentiment, and Hughes was at the forefront.

Hughes also used medievalism for the benefit of English people, using it to solve social problems through medieval history. His book, Tom Brown at Oxford, in particular, acts as medievalesque Christian Socialist propaganda. Although his role as a Christian Socialist has been minimized by scholars, Hughes acted to support the working class through literature, popular elections, legislative changes, legal arbitrations for cooperative ventures, and efforts with the Working Men’s College over the 1860s and 1870s, signifying that the Christian Socialist Movement did not collapse in the 1850s.

This Christian Socialist belief travelled to India when Hughes’ friend and fellow Christian Socialist, Lord Ripon, was made Viceroy of India. Hughes viewed Indian subjugation as a form of slavery, though he approved of imperialism. Imperialism allowed men to show their manliness while improving their social station by military service. He argued that military service in India was a sort of righteous fight in which men could find honor. He described English, imperialist heroes in terms of medieval gallantry. He maintained that White men were socially superior to Indian men, while simultaneously believing that Indian men could improve themselves enough for self-rule. Once Ripon went to India, Hughes was bound by friendship and abolitionist zeal to advocate for Indians in Parliament and support Ripon.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2025.102

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