George Hughes was born in Belfast on 12 March 1880 although service documents record birth year as 1881.  No records exist of his parents, but his Australian naval record gives his next of kin as his mother, Mrs Annie Hughes of Belfast. He joined the RN as a Stoker 2nd Class on 4 January 1901 at Devonport, and served in the battleships HMS MAGNIFICENT and HMS VICTORIOUS, the destroyer depot ship HMS TENEDOS, and the armoured cruiser HMS BLACK PRINCE before joining the submarine depot ship HMS FORTH on 31 March 1908.  Subsequent depot ships were HMS VULCAN, MERCURY, and HEBE although no details exist of specific submarines. In January 1913 he transferred to the Royal Australian Navy and was attached to the RAN London depot.

His record shows that he served in Australian submarines from 28 February 1914 to 24 May 1914.  These dates are consistent with the commissioning dates of HMAS AE1 and AE2 and their delivery voyage in company from England to Australia, at that time the longest voyages ever undertaken by submarines.  He was subsequently attached to the depot ship HMAS PENGUIN. Naval-history.net records that he died of illness on 24 November 1914 and attaches him to HMAS AE2 but no other documentary evidence of this has been found.  He is not identified in the crew photograph of HMAS AE2 on the RAN’s unit history page, and it seems possible that he might have served in AE1 or indeed in both submarines before his illness.

George Hughes is buried at Rookwood Necropolis, Sydney, New South Wales.