Henry Hughes Hough

Henry Hughes Hough (January 8, 1871–September 9, 1943) was a Rear Admiral of the United States Navy and one-time military Governor of the United States Virgin Islands. He was born in the French overseas colony of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, off the coast of Newfoundland.

Hough graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1891. He served on board the torpedo boat USS Morris (TB-14) during the Spanish-American War. Following the war, he alternated assignments in the Naval Intelligence office with ship-board duties. In 1911, he was made the Navy attache to France and, later, to Russia. From 1914 to 1915, he was given his first command: the gunboat USS Wilmington (PG-8), assigned to the Naval Academy. In 1918, he was made a district commander in Brest, France. He was subsequently also a commissioner of the Prisoner of War Conference in Berne, Switzerland. From 1919 to 1921, he commanded the battleship USS Utah (BB-31), and from 1921 to 1922, the USS New York (BB-34).

In 1922, while still a Captain, he was appointed as the Governor of the United States Virgin Islands, a role that he only acted in for a year. Hough was the first non-acting military governor to govern as a Captain, rather than a Rear Admiral, and the first not to be born in the United States.

In 1923, he was appointed as Director of Naval Intelligence. The following year, he was promoted to Rear Admiral on June 14, 1924. From 1925 to 1926, he commanded the Yangtze Patrol. He retired from the Navy in 1935 and died in 1943. Hough is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Hough was survived by his wife Flaurence Oliphant (1877–1970).