Elizabeth Phillips Hughes

Early life and education Hughes was born in Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, the daughter of John Hughes and Anne Phillips Hughes. Her father was the first medical officer in Carmarthen. She was the sister of Methodist reformer Hugh Price Hughes and of Frances Hughes. Her maternal great-grandfather was Samuel Levi Phillips, founder of the Haverfordwest Bank, who had converted from Judaism to Christianity, adopting the surname from Levi to Phillips.

She had little education as a child, but later attended a private school in Cheltenham, eventually becoming a teacher at Cheltenham Ladies' College, under the mentorship of Dorothea Beale. Under her leadership, the college expanded, became incorporated, and added faculty and facilities, including a library, a museum, and a gymnasium.

She retired from the college in 1899. she met Julia Ward Howe and Mary Tenney Castle, and took an interest in prison reform; she was impressed by American provisions for juvenile detention and female probation officers.

She toured China, Malaysia and Indonesia, attended the Women's International Congress, and spoke at the 1903 meeting of the National Union of Women Workers.

Education in Wales Hughes had a lifelong interest in education in Wales, especially for girls. In 1884, she took a prize at the Liverpool National Eisteddfod for her essay, "The Higher Education of Girls in Wales". She published a pamphlet titled The Educational Future of Wales in 1894. In 1898 she became secretary of the Association for Promoting the Education of Girls in Wales. She helped to found a teachers' college in Barry in 1914.

In 2018, her birthplace in Carmarthen was marked with a blue plaque. In 2021, she was featured in advertisements for a Cambridge fundraising campaign. Hughes is one of the women celebrated by the Barry Women's Trail.