Arthur Hugh Clough was the son of a Liverpool cotton merchant who moved the family to South Carolina when he was four. He returned to England to attend Rugby School under Thomas Arnold and then Balliol College, Oxford. At Oxford the influence of W.G. Ward and Newman destroyed his Anglican faith without providing a substitute. He was elected to a Fellowship at Oriel College in 1842, but resigned his tutorship on religious grounds in 1849 and spent the subsequent year in Paris and then Rome. After two years as head of University Hall in London he visited the USA, returning to an examinership in the Education Office. He also worked for his relation Florence Nightingale. He died of a fever and is buried in Florence.