Poet. He is remembered for his Victorian England era poems that reflect doubt on the traditional Christian religion. Although his life was short, he packed a great deal of adventure in it. Born to James Butler Clough, a cotton merchant of Welsh descent, and Anne Perfect. In 1822 the family moved to the United States settling in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1828, he and his older brother Charles returned to England to attend school in Chester, but in 1829 Clough began attending Rugby School, a prestigious public school. Isolated from his entire family, he devoted his time to school and writing for the Rugby Magazine. He became school friends with many poets including his closest friend Matthew Arnold, yet neither Clough or Arnold enjoyed the other's poetry. In 1836, his parents returned to Liverpool, and in 1837, he went to Balliol College at Oxford on a scholarship. Studying at Oxford to become a clergy, he became skeptical of his faith , graduating with Second Class Honors and left the university without means of income or goals. After his father's death in 1846, he became responsible for his younger sister and mother. He won a fellowship with tutorship at Oriel College. He became unwilling to teach the doctrines of the Church of England, as his tutorship required, thus he resigned and traveled to Paris, France where he witness the revolution of 1848. Traveling from Paris to Rome, Italy with orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Bernard E. Brodhurst in early 1849, they found the city occupied by the troops of Italian patriot, Giuseppe Garibaldi. On April 28, 1849, French troops under Lt. General Charles Oudinot advanced with 5,000 men. Hundreds of the French were wounded and taken prisoners. Afraid to be treated by Italian surgeons, the French wounded requested to be treated by foreign physicians if any were available. A few English physicians were available including Brodhurst, and all agreed to treat the wounded French soldiers, yet all except Brodhurst escaped Italy on April 30th. With Brodhurst, Clough and a handful of non-medical citizens treated the wounded French soldiers. In 1852, at the invitation of Ralph Waldo Emerson, he spent several months lecturing in Massachusetts. He married Miss Shore Smith. In pursue of a steady official career, he was appointed as a secretary to the commission in 1856 and sent to study foreign military education. He wrote no poetry for six years. He became an unpaid assistant to his wife's first cousin and pioneer nurse practitioner, Florence Nightingale, with her philanthropic projects. He was the brother of yet another strong, intelligent woman, Ann Clough, who was a suffragist and the principal of Newham College, Cambridge. Years later, his youngest child, which was born the year he died, Blanche Athena Clough, devoted her life to Newnharn College. According to critics, his best work has the tone and temper of the 20th century or “Modernism” instead of the Victorian era. Only two volumes of his poems were published during his lifetime: “The Bothie of Taber-na-Vuolich” in 1848 and “Ambarvalia” in 1849; others published before his 1861 death were “Amours de Voyage” in 1858 which dealt with romantic love, doubt, and social conflict. The long, yet incomplete poem, “Dipsychus” most fully expresses his doubt about the social and spiritual developments of his time, while his sharpest criticism of Victorian morals are seen in the poem, “The Latest Decalague.” He became critical and questioning his own abilities giving his contemporaries the impression of a promise unfulfilled, especially leaving the bulk of his work unpublished. His 1862 published “Poems” proved to be so popular that they were reprinted sixteen times within 40 years of his death. His health began to fail in 1860; he traveled to Greece, Turkey, and France in 1861 where he rallied and began to write poetry. At this point, his wife joined his travels on a voyage from Switzerland to Italy, where he contracted malaria dying at the age of 42. At the request of his wife and sister, Susan Homer designed his grave marker from a design of Jean-Francois Champollion's book of Egyptian hieroglyphs. His friend Matthew Arnold wrote the “Elegy of Thyrsis” in his memory. He was an important influence on later poets such as T.S. Eliot.