but he afterwards worked as a quarryman. He attracted the notice of the Rev. Evan Evans (Glan Geirionydd, 1795–1856), who advised him and lent him books. He began to preach about 1820, but was not ordained till 1829. He made rapid progress as a preacher, and was for many years looked upon as one of the greatest of Welsh preachers. He was also a composer, forty tunes of his being published in a ‘Collection of Congregational Tunes, Psalms, and Hymns,’ bearing the name Jeduthrum (ed. Morris Davies, Bangor). He died on Sunday, 17 Aug. 1857, aged 61, and was buried at Llanllyfni. A volume containing fifty-three of his sermons with a portrait (‘Pregethau y Parch. John Jones’) was published posthumously at Denbigh. A requiem was composed by the Rev. E. Stephen.
[Cofiant y Parch. John Jones, Talsarn (Wrexham), a memoir by the Rev. Owen Thomas, D.D., of Liverpool; Bywgraffiaeth Cerddorion Cymreig, 1890; Foulkes's Geirlyfr Bywgraffiadol.]
JONES, JOHN (1788–1858), versifier, also known as ‘the Welsh Bard,’ was born in 1788 at Llanasa, Flintshire, where his parents held a small farm. From 1796 to 1803 he was apprenticed to a cotton-spinner at Holywell, Flintshire, where he learnt to read and write. In 1804 he went to sea in a trading vessel sailing from Liverpool to the coast of Guinea, and in 1805 joined an English man-of-war, called The Barbadoes, which cruised in the West Indies. He was subsequently transferred to the Saturn, under Lord Amelius Beauclerk [q. v.], and in 1812 to the Royal George, which cruised in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. At the end of the Napoleonic war he left the service, and was soon engaged once more as an operative spinner at Holywell. In 1820 he removed to a factory belonging to Robert Platt at Stalybridge in Cheshire. He died on 19 June 1858, and his funeral was attended by about eight thousand people; he was buried in the ground attached to the Wesleyan chapel, Grosvenor Square, in Stalybridge, where a plain gravestone was erected, and a memorial tablet placed on the wall of the chapel by public subscription.
While a sailor Jones tried his hand at poetry, and in his old age he addressed his patrons in panegyrics, which he often published and sold as broadsheets. He wrote a poetical version of Æsop's and other fables, and was author of two poems, called ‘The Cotton Mill’ (1821) and ‘The Sovereign’ (1827). A collection of his works, entitled ‘Poems by John Jones,’ 8vo, was published in 1856, under the auspices of William Fairbairn of Manchester.
[Foulkes's Enwogion Cymru, pp. 604–6; Sutton's Lancashire Authors, p. 65; Gent. Mag. August 1858, p. 202.]
JONES, JOHN, or, according to his bardic name, Talhaiarn (1810–1869), Welsh poet, was born at the Harp inn, which was kept by his parents, in the village of Llanfairtalhaiarn, near Abergele, in 1810. He was brought up as an architect, and acted as general manager to Sir Joseph Paxton [q. v.], in which capacity he was for some time employed in the erection of one of the mansions of the Rothschild family near Paris. It was in this way that he acquired his knowledge of the French language, which he both wrote and spoke with perfect ease. During the latter years of his life he suffered a great deal from gout and an internal disease. In 1869, finding that his ailments were incurable, he made an attempt upon his life, from the effects of which he died on 13 Oct. 1869. He was buried in the churchyard of his native village, where a monument has been erected to his memory.
Talhaiarn enjoyed a considerable reputation among his countrymen as a president at their eisteddfodau, but he became most celebrated as a writer of Welsh words to the old Welsh airs. The latter are now more often sung with Talhaiarn's words than with those of any other writer. His lighter lyrical pieces are vigorous and racy, and deserve their popularity. But he took great liberties with the Welsh language, both by the copious introduction of English words and by the use of English syntax. The old Welsh metres he entirely threw aside, and his poetry by such a license was perhaps considerably the gainer. His English poems are cumbrous in diction and commonplace in thought.
Talhaiarn published three volumes of poetry: the first appeared in 1855, and contains some of his most popular songs and some translations, among others his imitation of Burns's ‘Tam o' Shanter,’ under the title, ‘Sôn am Ysprydion;’ to these some English poems are appended. In 1862 appeared the second volume, which includes all his remaining songs which attained any popularity; among others, ‘Mae Robin yn' Swil’ (Shy Robin), at one time well known throughout the principality. Some of the more ambitious pieces in this volume, e.g. ‘Tal ar Ben Bodran,’ and also those composed in English, cannot be considered successful. In the last year of his life another and smaller volume was published, but it shows failing powers and contains little which invites attention.
[Autobiographical notices in his works; personal knowledge.]
