Thomas Nelson Hughes

Thomas Nelson Hughes

Thomas was born in Luton to parents William, a boot maker born in Bedford, and Sarah Pearson from Northamptonshire who worked as a bonnet maker.  In 1871 he is recorded as living at 78 Hastings Street with his parents and 6 siblings. The family had moved to 141 Wellington Street by 1881 and soon Thomas would become a football player of some renown in the district and eventually elected onto the Luton Town Committee in 1890. He is known to have organised the collection for the club to purchase a set of John Alexander Brodie's revolutionary goal nets. He was also a member of the Ancient Order of the Foresters, and a Full Corporal in the Luton Volunteer Detachment.

He married Elizabeth Cowling from Cambridgeshire in 1886 and had four children, though only one, Cyril, survived infancy. His wife would die in 1893 and Thomas himself would fall ill on the way to an examination for the role of Sergeant in the Volunteers, dying of consumption on the 28th September at the age of just 26. He was buried at the General Cemetery and his funeral drew a large crowd, with a wreath sent by the Luton Town Committee.