The novel takes place in the 1820s and 1830s in England. The opening chapters describe Tom Brown's early childhood in the rural county of Berks, west of London in the Vale of the White Horse. There Tom leads an active life under the tutelage of family retainers.

Although he is a member of the upper classes, Tom associates with members of various social classes in the course of his daily activities. Hughes depicts a close-knit rural community just before the onslaught of the railways and the Industrial Revolution.

The scene shifts first to a small private preparatory school and then to the primary setting of the novel, Rugby, where Tom spends the next eight years.

Located in a small, rural town, Rugby is a large, all-male public school run by Thomas Arnold, one of the great reformers in British educational history.

Except for a brief reference to the...