Hughes, John

Hughes, John (Joseph) (1797–1864) Catholic prelate; born in County Tyrone, Ireland. Emigrating to the U.S.A. in 1817 and ordained in 1826, he did pastoral work in Philadelphia, and after becoming coadjutor bishop of New York (1838), succeeded four years later to the see, which was made an archdiocese in 1850. He founded St. John's (now Fordham) College (1841), set up an ambitious parochial school system, helped found the American College in Rome, and began construction of St. Patrick's Cathedral (1858). In 1861 he went on a mission to France seeking friendship for the North in the Civil War. He is now recognized as having played a crucial role in both securing Catholics' rights in the U.S.A. and in helping Catholics become integrated into American society.

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Hughes, John 

Born 1814 in Merthyr Tydfil, Great Britain; died June 17 (29), 1889, in St. Petersburg. British entrepreneur and Russian capitalist.

The son of an engineer, Hughes in 1860 became director of a British metallurgical plant that filled orders for the Russian government. In 1869, after receiving a concession from the Russian government to build a metallurgical plant, he formed the New Russia Company, a joint-stock company for the production of coal, iron, and rails. The company owned the Hughes Metallurgical Plant, built between 1869 and 1872 in the village of Iuzovka (now Donetsk). Subsidies from the Russian government enabled Hughes to transform his plant into a large combine for the production of rails and other metal goods; it was at the combine’s iron mines that the Iuzovka strike of 1887 took place.