Description:This is an abridged biography taken from the Handsworth Magazine. The full version is available as a download. Councillor Hughes lived at 37 Villa Road, Handsworth and was an artist of some note. Several of Hughes' paintings are available elsewhere on this site.
The subject of our sketch is the descendant of a Welsh border family and was born in Birmingham in 1828.
His earliest recollections are of Handsworth. As a child he attended a private school in Heathfield Road, kept by Miss Hardman and was there initiated into the mysteries of reading, writing and arithmetic. Subsequently he attended a branch school of King Edward’s in Gem Street and completed his education at the Grammar School, Burton-on-Trent.
In 1856 he came to Handsworth to reside and with his wife and family has lived in the house he now occupies in Villa Road for 35 years. The topography of Handsworth has, almost needless to say, undergone great changes in the period and in respect of the alterations and improvements in the condition of the roads, sewering, draining and so on, the Chairman of the Highways Committee has played a by no means insignificant part.
It was the uncared for appearance of the roads which brought him into public life. In travelling to and from town he availed himself of the short cut afforded by Terrace Road. In bad weather this thoroughfare was often knee-deep in mud and loud and deep were the murmurings of the pedestrians whose hard lot it was to traverse it. Mr Hughes rose in revolt and the annual meeting of the Highway Board being held just at the psychological moment at the Lamp Tavern, Church Hill, he hied him thither and made a vigorous statement of what he felt to be a very real grievance. Like Caesar of old he came, he saw, he conquered. His eloquence carried the day. He was proposed as a member of the Board and, much he avows to his surprise, was duly elected. From that day to this he has remained a member of the Highway Board and Committee and has now in all probability a more intimate acquaintance with all the highways and bye-ways of Handsworth than any other of our public men.
His first exploit was, naturally, to get Terrace Road re-made. The task was not as easy as those unacquainted with red tapeism may suppose. The Board had no compulsory powers and ere the work could be carried out, the ways and means had to be extracted from the pockets of the property owners. Mr Hughes and those who supported him in his action, met with many rebuffs; but they persevered, carried their point and Terrace Road was improved out of all recognition. Weston Road received similar attentions and shortly afterwards the making of Trinity Road was successfully undertaken.
In 1874 Handsworth emerged from its comparative obscurity into what it has ever since been – a (comparative) centre of light and leading. The Local Board was formed in that year. That illustrious authority introduced the 3s rate and soon showed that, so far as their income could be made to eke out, they meant accomplishing great things. Mr Hughes was elected a member of the Board in the April of 1879. He was soon afterwards appointed Chairman of the Highway Committee – the Committee which has the largest spending powers – and has held that position ever since, the years 1882 and 1883, when he occupied the Chair of the Board, alone excepted. He is thus closely identified with the history of Handsworth for more than a quarter of a century. During that period the district has been completely transmogrified. Its growth has been simply unprecedented. Since 1879 no less than 90 roads have been made and 31,000 yards of land given up by owners for the improvement of the same.
On the death of Mr William Bragge in 1884, Mr Hughes was elected as the representative of Handsworth upon the Tame and Rea Drainage Board. He still retains this dignity and for some time the added honour has been his of occupying the Chair on the Works Committee.
In 1885 a public reading room was opened at Perry Barr. Mr Hughes was largely responsible for bringing this about and he is all the more interested therefore in the scheme now before the public for establishing a branch library in that populous neighbourhood. In the acquisition of the park too, Mr Hughes took an active part and he has watched with the keenest interest the growth in size and beauty of this very necessary adjunct to the life of the suburb. The first extension to the park after its formal opening in the Jubilee year, was that of a triangular piece of land abutting on Holly Road; the more recent and vastly more important additions comprise the Old Rectory Grounds in Hamstead Road and a large expanse of meadow land on the Grove Lane side of the park.
Mr Hughes has established a worthy record for unflagging zeal in the public cause. For 17 years he has been a prominent member of our Local Parliament; he has served on the Highway Committee for as long a time and his heart is as much in the work now as when he first commenced. He is a member of the following committees: Highway, Plans and Buildings, Finance, Park and Fire Brigade, General Purposes, District Sewerage, Public Library and Technical School.
And now to turn aside from the multifarious public duties, which the subject of our sketch has taken upon himself and to glance at him in private life. In politics he is a thorough-going Liberal and in religion he is very broad-minded, as will be understood when we add that he is an ardent admirer and disciple of the late George Dawson. For many years he worshipped at Mount Zion, Newhall Hill and the Church of the Saviour, where he held the office of warden for more than two decades; in fact until the closing of the Church.
He is an artist by profession and doubtless many of our readers are well conversant with his style of landscape painting. He was apprenticed to an auctioneer whilst in his teens, but his employer died and he entered the service of the late Mr W Holmes, a well-known picture dealer. He cultivated his talent for drawing and became a pupil of Mr William Hall, the biographer and friend of David Cox. Mr Hughes has contributed to the whole of the exhibitions held by the Society of Artists during the past 40 years and his work has also been accepted by the Royal Academy and various London and provincial exhibitions. Of art and artists he has many a good story to tell.
“I first met David Cox” says Mr Hughes, “at the Oak, Betwys-y-Coed, a place he brought into notice by sending his drawings from the locality to the Old Water-Colour Society. It was his 47th annual visit. When he first exploited the place it comprised two cottages and a small inn. His drawings soon drew attention to the beauties of the place; other artists followed him and then the public, until it became a famous resort for lovers of the picturesque. The ‘Oak’ shared with a neighbouring farmhouse, the patronage of the brethen of the brush, 30 or 40 of whom were always to be found there. Happy days were those. For 27s per week one was lodged and boarded in famous style. Dinner was served at 6-30, and for the first course a fine salmon was generally placed on the table. The ‘Oak’ is a fine hotel now.
The outlook from the Church was always a favourite subject and once enterprising young Philistine one day audaciously entered the sacred edifice and drew upon the pulpit a very convincing picture of a parson. Sometime after dusk news of this reached David Cox, who was much scandalised. He at once seized a lantern and getting the ostler to carry a can of warm water and a cloth he trudged forth to the Church and carefully removed all traces of the obnoxious drawing.
Mr Hughes has many an anecdote to tell of the great David. “From our dining-room window at Betwys-y-Coed” he says, “we could see Pont-y-Pair, another favourite subject for the canvas and one day we noticed a clerical gentleman, a very clever amateur, at work with his palate and brush. Ever and anon he desisted from his employment and gesticulated with his a