Born at Maidstone on 23 February 1878, the youngest son of Henry Hughes a solicitor, he was educated at Maidstone School, the Middlesex Hospital and St Bartholomew's Hospital. After qualification he held appointments as house physician and house surgeon to Sir Henry Morris, later as assistant demonstrator of anatomy at Bart's, and as prosector at the College of Surgeons. From 1906 to 1908 he was at the Bolingbroke Hospital as medical superintendent, registrar and pathologist. In 1908 he moved to York on appointment as honorary anaesthetist to the County Hospital, and was later appointed surgeon to out-patients and then consulting surgeon, retiring in 1946 after thirty-eight years' service to the hospital. He was also consulting surgeon to Driffield Cottage Hospital, and was instrumental in establishing the Purey-Cust Nursing Home. In 1914 he was commissioned as surgical specialist RAMC attached to Northern Command and from 1915 to 1918 served with the BEF. In 1942 he became a Governor of the Merchant Adventurers Company of York, and he was also a member of Council of the Magistrates' Association and of the Church Assembly. For fifty years a member of the BMA, he was chairman of the Workmen's Compensation committee 1935-39. A wealthy man, he made many generous gifts to charity and to York Minister. He was unmarried and died on 24 November 1959.