Treasurer's Remembrancer's side of the Exchequer; extracted from the Records, and from the Manuscripts of Mr. Tayleure, Mr. Madox, and Mr. Chapman, formerly Officers in that Office,’ London, fol., printed for the editor, vol. i. 1793; vol. ii. 1795. Dedicated ‘To Sir Archibald Macdonald, Knt., Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, from Inner Temple, July 28, 1793.’ 3. ‘Cyfreithiau Plwyf [i.e.] parish laws]; sef holl ddyledswydd y Swyddogion, Wardeiniaid, neu Brocatorion, Goruchwylwyr y Tylodion, neu Overseers ac eraill Swyddogion Plwyf o bob Gradd,’ Bala, 1794.
Owen Jones (fl. 1790), Edward's brother, sometimes called Còr y Cyrtie, probably because he was a lawyer, was secretary to the Gwyneddigion Society in London in 1789, vice-president in 1792, and president in 1793.
[Rowlands's Cambrian Bibliography; letters from Mr. R. Williams, Newtown, Montgomeryshire, the Rev. Canon D. Silvan Evans, and Mr. T. Walter Williams, Middle Temple.]
JONES, EDWARD (1777–1837), founder of Welsh Wesleyan methodism, was the eldest son of Edward and Jane Jones of Bathafarn, near Ruthin, Denbighshire, where he was born 9 May 1777. He was educated at Ruthin grammar school, and when about seventeen years of age entered a cotton warehouse at Manchester. In 1796 he joined the Wesleyan congregation in Oldham Street, where the Rev. George Marsden was minister. Returning to Wales in December 1799, and resolving to introduce the Wesleyan organisation into his native country, he invited ministers from the Chester circuit to preach at Ruthin in a long room which he engaged for the purpose. The ministrations were at first conducted in English, but it was afterwards arranged to conduct them in Welsh, and Jones and one John Bryan, a native of Llanfyllin, who had removed to Chester, undertook the services on alternate Sundays. The movement spread rapidly; the Wesleyan conference for 1800 constituted Ruthin into a circuit, and decided on the establishment of a Welsh mission. After two years' probation as a local preacher Jones was ordained in 1802, and for the following fourteen years he was chiefly instrumental in promoting a religious revival in Wales and the establishment of Wesleyan churches. In 1816 he was removed to England, where he remained, stationed at different centres, till his death at Leek in Staffordshire, 26 Aug. 1837.
[Methodist Mag. for September 1838; Enwogion y Ffydd, iv. 274–83; Cofiant John Jones, Talsarn, by Dr. Owen Thomas, pp. 276–81.]
JONES, EMMA (1814–1842), painter. [See Soyer.]
JONES, ERNEST CHARLES (1819–1869), politician, of a Welsh family, son of Charles Jones, major in the 15th hussars and equerry to Ernest, duke of Cumberland, was born at Berlin 25 Jan. 1819. His father lived on his estate in Holstein, and the son was educated on the continent and attained some distinction at the college of St. Michael, Lüneburg. He wrote some poems before he was ten years old, which were published by Nesler at Hamburg, and at the age of eleven ran away from home to join the Polish insurgents, but was overtaken and brought back again. In 1838 his father returned to England, and Ernest entered upon the life of a man of good means and position, was presented to the queen in 1841 by the Duke of Beaufort, and married Miss Atherley of Barfield, Cumberland. In the same year he published a romantic novel, ‘The Wood Spirit,’ and engaged successfully in journalism. On 19 April 1844 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, but did not practise. In 1846 he first took the political course which he followed for the rest of his life, and joined the chartist movement. Though he was physically a small man, his powerful voice, his brilliant rhetoric, his dramatic gesture, his flowing speech, made him a most persuasive orator. He attached himself, probably without much serious consideration, to Feargus O'Connor, appeared at the Leeds conference in August 1846, and defended O'Connor against the attacks of Thomas Cooper. He threw himself energetically into the chartist cause, assisted in conducting O'Connor's monthly magazine, the ‘Labourer,’ in 1847, and wrote in the ‘Northern Star,’ of which he subsequently became editor. In August 1847 he contested Halifax, and polled 280 votes; he was the delegate for Halifax in the chartist convention in April 1848, and spoke after O'Connor at the monster meeting on Kennington Common. He was now an ardent advocate of physical force, visited Aberdeen, Dundee, and Edinburgh to urge the formation of a provisional government and a national guard, and was elected by the chartist national assembly a member of the chartist executive government. He had parted from O'Connor, who was for a peaceful movement. At length, after his seditious speeches at Clerkenwell Green and Bonner's Fields, 29 and 30 May, he was arrested at Manchester, tried at the July sessions of the central criminal court, found guilty, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. In gaol he refused to pick oakum, and was put upon
