He was born on January 8, 1871, in the
French overseas colony of
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, off the coast of
Newfoundland. In 1901 he married Flaurence Oliphant Ward. Hough graduated from the
United States Naval Academy in 1891. He served on board the
torpedo boat 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 , assigned to the Naval Academy. In 1918, he was made a Staff Representative and district commander in
Brest, France, as part of the overall Naval Forces, France Command. He was subsequently also a commissioner of the
Prisoner of War Conference in
Berne, Switzerland. From 1919 to 1921, he commanded the battleship , and from 1921 to 1922, the . In 1922, while still a
Captain, he was appointed by President
Warren G. Harding 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 and the following year on June 14, 1924, he was promoted to
Rear Admiral. He commanded the
Yangtze Patrol from 1925 until December 5, 1927, when command was assumed by Rear Admiral
Yates Stirling Jr. 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). ==References==