ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH was born in 1819 in Liverpool, the son of a cotton merchant. His family emigrated to South Carolina, where he spent his childhood, before he returned to England to attend Rugby school in 1829. It was while he was at Rugby that Clough made friends with Matthew Arnold, the son of the headmaster. After taking his degree at Oxford he became a fellow and tutor at Oriel College, but in 1848 his religious doubts led him to resign. He was appointed Professor of English at University College, London. In 1852 he resigned from University College and became a tutor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he mixed with the circle of New England intellectuals that included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Eliot Norton. He returned to England in 1853 to take up a post as Examiner in the Education Office. Clough died in Florence in 1861.