Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jones, William (1784-1842)

by Thomas Boston Johnstone ‎

JONES, WILLIAM (1784–1842), independent minister, was born in Birmingham on 6 Feb. 1784. The members of his family appear to have been distinguished by mechanical skill; his father was the inventor of springs for carriages, and an uncle introduced the first weighing-machine into Lancashire. William received his elementary education at a school in Oxfordshire. In 1800 he resolved to study for the independent ministry. In his twentieth year he entered Hoxton academy, and entered on his first and only pastorate at Bolton in September 1807. At the suggestion of Dr. Simpson, formerly pastor of Duke's Alley Chapel, Bolton, and afterwards resident tutor at Hoxton, a second independent church had just been formed in Bolton, a chapel had been erected in Mawdsley Street, capable of accommodating a congregation of about eight hundred persons, and Jones was the first minister. Under Jones's efficient ministry the Mawdsley Street Chapel was enlarged, a spacious schoolhouse was erected, and Jones's chapel became the parent of other congregations in the neighbourhood. He died 19 Oct. 1842.

Jones published, besides separate sermons, tracts, books for children, and articles in religious periodicals:

1. ‘The Teacher's or Parent's Assistant,’ 1821.
2. ‘An Essay, the Deity of Christ,’ 1824.
3. ‘Address to Young People in early receiving the Lord's Supper,’ 1831, three editions.
4. ‘Essay on Covetousness, and the Claims of the Redeemer,’ 1836.
5. ‘The Teacher's Help, or Prayers in Verse.’
6. ‘The Faintings of a Standard-Bearer.’
7. ‘Improper and Unhappy Marriages,’ 1842.

In 1832 and in 1833 he helped to edit ‘The Voice of Truth,’ a monthly periodical, published at Bolton.

[Evangelical Magazine, 1843; Scholes's Bolton Biography.]

T. B. J.