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Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Jones, Lewis Tobias

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1343470Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement, Volume 3 — Jones, Lewis Tobias1901John Knox Laughton

JONES, LEWIS TOBIAS (1797–1895), admiral, second son of L. T. Jones, captain in the royal artillery and author of a history of the campaign in Holland in 1793–4–5, was born on 24 Dec. 1797. He entered the navy in January 1808 on board the Thrasher brig, attached to the Walcheren expedition in 1809, but whether Jones was actually serving in her at the time is doubtful. In 1812 he was in the Stirling Castle off Brest, in 1816 was in the Granicus at Algiers, where he was wounded, and served continuously in the Channel, and on the Cape of Good Hope or West Indian stations till he was made lieutenant on 29 Aug. 1822. He was afterwards on the North American, the West Indies, home, and Mediterranean stations. On 28 June 1838 he was promoted to be commander (second captain) of the Princess Charlotte, flagship of Sir Robert Stopford [q. v.], and was in her during the operations on the coast of Syria in the summer and autumn of 1840, for which service he was promoted to be captain by commission dated 4 Nov., the day following the reduction of Acre. In 1847 he was flag-captain to Commodore Sir Charles Hotham [q. v.] in the Penelope, on the west coast of Africa, where in February 1849 he commanded the boats of the squadron at the destruction of the slave barracoons in the Gallinas river. The Penelope was paid off in the summer of 1849, and early in 1850 Jones was appointed to the Sampson, again for the west coast, under the orders of Commodore Bruce. On 26–7 Dec. 1851 he commanded the expedition detached against the great slaving stronghold at Lagos, which was destroyed and the place made dependent on the English government. Bruce highly commended Jones's 'gallantry, firmness, judgment, and energy,' and sent him home with despatches. Still in the Sampson, he then went to the Mediterranean, and on 22 April 1854 was senior officer at the bombardment of Odessa. On 26 May he was nominated a C.B. He continued actively employed in the Black Sea, and in November was moved into the 90-gun ship London, in which he continued till the end of the war. For his services at this time he received the cross of an officer of the legion of honour and the Medjidie of the third class. On 17 June 1859 he was promoted to be rear-admiral, and in the following year was second in command on the China station, under Sir James Hope (1808–1881) [q. v.] On 28 June 1861 he was made a K.C.B. From 1862 to 1865 he was commander-in-chief at Queenstown, and became a vice-admiral on 2 Dec. 1865. On 1 April 1870, under Childers's scheme of retirement for age, he was put on the retired list, on which he became an admiral on 14 July 1871. On 24 May 1873 he was made a G.C.B.; and on 25 March 1884 visitor and governor of Greenwich Hospital, a nominal and honorary appointment. He died at Southsea, after two days' indisposition without pain, on 11 Oct. 1895, within a few weeks of completing his ninety-eighth year.

[O'Byrne's Naval Biogr. Dict.; Times, 14, 17 Oct. 1895; Navy Lists.]