JONES, EDWARD (1761 - 1836), poet, farmer, and schoolmaster

Born at Tan-y-Waen, Prion, Llanrhaeadr Dyffryn Clwyd, Denbighshire, 19 March 1761, son of John Jones, farmer, and his wife, Ann, daughter of William Williams, Rhyd-y-Cilgwyn. When he was about a year old the family moved to Bryn-y-gwynt-isaf in the same parish. The father died when Edward was about 10 years old. He had little formal education, and that from Daniel Lloyd, Independent minister at Denbigh, but he did his utmost to improve his mind, and he interested himself in poetry from childhood. When he was about 22 years old he was for a short period at school at Chester. He married Jane Pierce, Rhewl, on the last day of 1784, and they lived for nine years at Bryn-y-gwynt, where four children were born to them. On Easter Tuesday 1787 he joined the Calvinistic Methodist Society which met in the parlour of Mrs. Ann Parry at Bryn Mulan. His wife died in 1794, and the following year he married Margaret, daughter of John Roberts, Tŷ Mawr, Green, Denbigh, by whom he had thirteen children. About 1796, they removed to Tŷ Newydd, Pont Ystrad, then to Pen-y-Banc, and from there to Maes-y-plwm, which has become linked with his name. He kept an English school for varying periods at Prion, and worked at times in the Liverpool Custom House. He took charge of the school at Denbigh for a short time after the death of Daniel Lloyd. In 1805, he went to Chester to supervise the publication of the Welsh translation of Samuel Clarke's Bible for J. Humphreys, Caerwys. His second wife died in 1818. In January 1825 he made the Maes-y-plwm farm over to his son Edward, and went to Llyn-y-Pandy, Flintshire, to keep school in a Calvinistic Methodist chapel. In 1829, he again moved, to Cilcain, taking charge of a school, and died there 27 December 1836. He was buried in Llanrhaeadr churchyard on 31 December.

A versatile personality and a poet of ability, characterized by his fondness for alliteration, Edward Jones left behind only a small body of poetry, mainly in the form of elegies, carols, and hymns. His first collection of hymns, printed at Denbigh, appeared in 1810, and was reprinted in revised editions in 1820 and 1829. In 1831 he published a satirical poem, Gwialen i gefn yr ynfyd, in answer to a book by Edward Jones (1782 - 1855), Wesleyan minister at Llanidloes. His only eisteddfodic success was a prize for his poem 'Cân ar Ffolineb Swyngyfaredd,' at Welshpool, 1824. His sons, John and Daniel, published the remains of his poetical works in their biography of him, 1839. Though he left instructions for the destruction of all his unpublished poems, a manuscript which he began to write in 1789, and in which his son, Daniel, schoolmaster at Cilcain, kept his diary, is at the National Library. At least three of his hymns have stood the test of time in Welsh congregational worship. Two of his sons followed their father as schoolmasters and afterwards became ministers. JOHN JONES (1787 - 1860) was Calvinistic Methodist minister at Runcorn, and Daniel Jones (1813 - 1846) is separately noticed.

Author

• Evan David Jones, (1903 - 1987)

Sources

• J. Jones and Daniel Jones, Cofiant, y'nghyd â Gweddillion Caniadau, y Diweddar Edward Jones, o Faes y Plwm (Mold 1839)
• NLW Archives: NLW MS 599A: Emynau, carolau, &c.
• Y Drysorfa, 1860, 322
• J. Thickens, Emynau a'u Hawduriaid (1945), 64-6

Further Reading

• J. E. Caerwyn Williams, Edward Jones, Maes-y-Plwm (Dinbych 1962)

Additional Links

• VIAF: 9622498
• Wikidata: Q18535739

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/