for a few months in 1878 was minister of militia under the Liberal government. Largely owing to his influence the Liberal party refused in 1878 to abandon its Free Trade policy, an obstinacy which led to its defeat in that year. In 1900 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of his native province, and held this position till his death on the 15th of March 1906.
JONES, SIR ALFRED LEWIS (1845–1909), British shipowner,
was born in Carmarthenshire, in 1845. At the age of twelve he
was apprenticed to the managers of the African Steamship
Company at Liverpool, making several voyages to the west
coast of Africa. By the time he was twenty-six he had risen
to be manager of the business. Not finding sufficient scope in
this post, he borrowed money to purchase two or three small
sailing vessels, and started in the shipping business on his own
account. The venture succeeded, and he made additions to his
fleet, but after a few years’ successful trading, realizing that
sailing ships were about to be superseded by steamers, he sold
his vessels. About this time (1891) Messrs. Elder, Dempster
& Co., who purchased the business of the old African Steamship
Company, offered him a managerial post. This offer he accepted,
subject to Messrs. Elder, Dempster selling him a number of their
shares, and he thus acquired an interest in the business, and
subsequently, by further share purchases, its control. See
further Steamship Lines. In 1901 he was knighted. Sir
Alfred Jones took a keen interest in imperial affairs, and was
instrumental in founding the Liverpool school of tropical
medicine. He acquired considerable territorial interests in
West Africa, and financial interests in many of the companies
engaged in opening up and developing that part of the world.
He also took the leading part in opening up a new line of communication
with the West Indies, and stimulating the Jamaica
fruit trade and tourist traffic. He died on the 13th of December
1909, leaving large charitable bequests.
JONES, EBENEZER (1820–1860), British poet, was born in
Islington, London, on the 20th of January 1820. His father,
who was of Welsh extraction, was a strict Calvinist, and Ebenezer
was educated at a dull, middle-class school. The death of his
father obliged him to become a clerk in the office of a tea
merchant. Shelley and Carlyle were his spiritual masters, and
he spent all his spare time in reading and writing; but he
developed an exaggerated style of thought and expression, due
partly to a defective education. The unkind reception of his
Studies of Sensation and Event (1843) seemed to be the last drop
in his bitter cup of life. Baffled and disheartened, he destroyed
his manuscripts. He earned his living as an accountant and by
literary hack work, and it was not until he was rapidly dying of
consumption that he wrote his three remarkable poems, “Winter
Hymn to the Snow,” “When the World is Burning” and “To
Death.” The fame that these and some of the pieces in the
early volume brought to their author came too late. He died
on the 14th of September 1860.
It was not till 1870 that Dante Gabriel Rossetti praised his work in Notes and Queries. Rossetti’s example was followed by W. B. Scott, Theodore Watts-Dunton, who contributed some papers on the subject to the Athenaeum (September and October 1878), and R. H. Sheppard, who edited Studies of Sensation and Event in 1879.
JONES, ERNEST CHARLES (1819–1869), English Chartist,
was born at Berlin on the 25th of January 1819, and educated
in Germany. His father, an officer in the British army, was then
equerry to the duke of Cumberland—afterwards king of Hanover.
In 1838 Jones came to England, and in 1841 published anonymously
The Wood Spirit, a romantic novel. This was followed
by some songs and poems. In 1844 he was called to the bar at
the Middle Temple. In 1845 he joined the Chartist agitation,
quickly becoming its most prominent figure, and vigorously
carrying on the party’s campaign on the platform and in the
press. His speeches, in which he openly advocated physical
force, led to his prosecution, and he was sentenced in 1848 to
two years’ imprisonment for sedition. While in prison he wrote,
it is said in his own blood on leaves torn from a prayer-book,
The Revolt of Hindostan, an epic poem. On his release he again
became the leader of what remained of the Chartist party and
editor of its organ. But he was almost its only public speaker;
he was out of sympathy with the other leading Chartists, and
soon joined the advanced Radical party. Thenceforward he
devoted himself to law and literature, writing novels, tales and
political songs. He made several unsuccessful attempts to
enter parliament, and was about to contest Manchester, with
the certainty of being returned, when he died there on the 26th
of January 1869. He is believed to have sacrificed a considerable
fortune rather than abandon his Chartist principles. His
wife was Jane Atherley; and his son, Llewellyn Atherley-Jones,
K.C. (b. 1851), became a well-known barrister and Liberal
member of parliament.
JONES, HENRY (1831–1899), English author, well known as a
writer on whist under his nom de guerre “Cavendish,” was born
in London on the 2nd of November 1831, being the eldest son of
Henry D. Jones, a medical practitioner. He adopted his father’s
profession, established himself in 1852 and continued for sixteen
years in practice in London. The father was a keen devotee of
whist, and under his eye the son became early in life a good player.
He was a member of several whist clubs, among them the “Cavendish,”
and in 1862 appeared his Principles of Whist, stated and
explained by “Cavendish,” which was destined to become the
leading authority as to the practice of the game. This work
was followed by treatises on the laws of piquet and écarté.
“Cavendish” also wrote on billiards, lawn tennis and croquet,
and contributed articles on whist and other games to the ninth
edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. “’Cavendish’ was not
a law-maker, but he codified and commented upon the laws which
had been made during many generations of card-playing.” One
of the most noteworthy points in his character was the manner
in which he kept himself abreast of improvements in his favourite
game. He died on the 10th of February 1899.
JONES, HENRY ARTHUR (1851– ), English dramatist,
was born at Grandborough, Buckinghamshire, on the 28th of
September 1851 the son of Silvanus Jones, a farmer. He began
to earn his living early, his spare time being given to literary
pursuits. He was twenty-seven before his first piece, Only
Round the Corner, was produced at the Exeter Theatre, but within
four years of his début as a dramatist he scored a great success by
The Silver King (November 1882), written with Henry Herman, a
melodrama produced by Wilson Barrett at the Princess’s Theatre.
Its financial success enabled the author to write a play “to
please himself.” Saints and Sinners (1884), which ran for two
hundred nights, placed on the stage a picture of middle-class life
and religion in a country town, and the introduction of the
religious element raised considerable outcry. The author defended
himself in an article published in the Nineteenth Century
(January 1885), taking for his starting-point a quotation from
the preface to Molière’s Tartuffe. His next serious piece was
The Middleman (1889), followed by Judah (1890), both powerful
plays, which established his reputation. Later plays were
The Dancing Girl (1891), The Crusaders (1891), The Bauble Shop
(1893), The Tempter (1893), The Masqueraders (1894), The Case of
Rebellious Susan (1894), The Triumph of the Philistines (1895),
Michael and his Lost Angel (1896), The Rogue’s Comedy (1896), The
Physician (1897), The Liars (1897), Carnac Sahib (1899), The
Manœuvres of Jane (1899), The Lackeys’ Carnival (1900), Mrs
Dane’s Defence (1900), The Princess’s Nose (1902), Chance the Idol
(1902), Whitewashing Julia (1903), Joseph Entangled (1904), The
Chevalier (1904), &c. A uniform edition of his plays began to be
issued in 1891; and his own views of dramatic art have been
expressed from time to time in lectures and essays, collected in
1895 as The Renascence of the English Drama.
JONES, INIGO (1573–1651), English architect, sometimes
called the “English Palladio,” the son of a cloth-worker, was
born in London on the 15th of July 1573. It is stated that he
was apprenticed to a joiner, but at any rate his talent for drawing
attracted the attention of Thomas Howard, earl of Arundel
(some say William, 3rd earl of Pembroke), through whose help he
went to study landscape-painting in Italy. His preference soon
transferred itself to architecture, and, following chiefly the style
