Invisible ink No 306: Thomas Hughes

The heroic English schoolboy is an archetype that has survived for two centuries, and his story was kickstarted by this author. Born in 1822, Thomas Hughes was sent to boarding school at age eight and mentored by a high-minded moralistic headmaster who left his mark on the lad. Hughes became a lawyer and a Liberal MP, and wrote books titled True Manliness and The Manliness of Christ.

But it was the novel he began writing for his son when he was 34 that lasted. Yet for all its influence, few modern-day children have read Tom Brown’s Schooldays or its sequel Tom Brown at Oxford.

This is mainly because it’s incredibly preachy, although there’s a good adventure within it. Brown goes to boarding school, makes friends and faces the bully Harry Flashman, who in the book’s most unpleasant scene blisters Tom’s legs against an open fire.

There are scrapes and dramas, including a bout of pneumonia from a plunge in a lake, an honourable decision on cheating, and a heroic last-minute substitution in a cricket match. All the ethical and moral dilemmas of young life are presented along with physical, social, and spiritual development, coupled with great detail about the rigid structure of school life.

Despite being didactic and not written to entertain, the book was an astounding success, read by everyone from Tennyson to Dr Livingstone. Even in 1940, it was still the fourth most popular read for schoolboys.

In Japan, it became the most popular English text, although the cricket match was cut out because the translators didn’t know the game’s rules. It’s been filmed five times and was inevitably turned into a musical (with Keith Chegwin).

Its villain, Flashman, became the anti-hero of George MacDonald Fraser’s successful novel series, and it was a clear influence on every other school-set character – from Billy Bunter to Jennings. However, it wasn’t the first book set in an English boarding school. That was Sarah Fielding’s The Governess, or the Little Female Academy, which had appeared in 1749 and was the first full-length novel written for children.

Inevitably, George Orwell took against such tales (as he did with Bunter), to little effect. Readers preferred stories venerating schooldays to ones vilifying them – and still do, judging by the stupendous success of Harry Potter. One wonders whether J K Rowling will go the same way as Hughes and vanish from bookshelves in years to come?