JONES, SAMUEL ([ 1681? ]- 1719), Dissenting Academy tutor

(Not to be confused with Samuel Jones, Brynllywarch). Son of Malachi Jones, a Dissenting minister who emigrated to Pennsylvania and died there in 1728. A Malachi Jones was minister in the Welsh parts of Herefordshire in 1690, and was still there in 1696 (Gordon, Freedom after Ejection); if he was Samuel's father, it is hard to believe with Gordon that Samuel was born 'in America, about 1680,' unless we are to think that Malachi emigrated twice. It is known that Samuel Jones had two nephews. One of them was JEREMIAH JONES (1693 - 1724), a minister and academy tutor (in fact, he inherited his uncle's Academy), and a New Testament scholar of some note; there is a good article on him, by Gordon, in D.N.B.; he was born at Llangollen, and was son of David Jones (died 1718 at Shrewsbury), of Llangollen, a pupil, and in 1687 a son-in-law, of Samuel Jones of Brynllywarch. Whether David and Malachi were blood-brothers or only brothers-in-law is not stated, but it is obvious that they were contemporaries [ David had another son, Joshua (died 1740), minister at Nailsworth and at Manchester, and a daughter, who married a Jackson and whose son Samuel Jackson (educated at Llwynllwyd) was (like his uncles) minister at Nailsworth (Walter Evans in NLW MSS 10327B )].

Samuel Jones was at Abergavenny under Roger Griffith. When Griffith conformed (1702), it is alleged that the Academy was transferred to Knill, Radnorshire, in charge of John Weaver, but this is incorrect - it was to Shrewsbury, under the care of James Owen, that Samuel Jones and the other students removed. On James Owen's death (1706), Jones went to Leiden; he returned to England in 1708 and opened an academy at Gloucester, removing it in [the spring of] 1712 to Tewkesbury, where his house still stands [it was attacked by the mob in 1714 ]; he remained a layman. He was a notable scholar in the classics and in Hebrew, but he published nothing [a contemporary satire on Tewkesbury refers to him as 'Gamaliel sage of Cambrian breed']. The most famous of his pupils were the future bishop Joseph Butler and the future archbishop Thomas Secker; Secker, in a letter (1711) to Isaac Watts, speaks most highly of the academy and of Samuel Jones himself, though he has a later reference to him which says that he tippled overmuch and had become lazy and bad-tempered. The best-known of Jones's Welsh pupils is Vavasor Griffths. Jones was an Independent, and the Presbyterian Fund Board sent him no pupils before 1714. He died 11 October 1719 aged 37 - ' in coelos accitus est anno aetatis 38, Octob. 11, 1719 ' says his tombstone; he was buried behind the chancel of Tewkesbury abbey.] His nephew Jeremiah (above) removed the academy to Nailsworth. Samuel Jones's wife was a Judith Weaver; she afterwards married Edward Godwin (one of her husband's pupils), and is separately noticed under that surname.

Author

• Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, (1881 - 1969)

Sources

• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
• Cylchgrawn Cymdeithas Hanes y Methodistiaid Calfinaidd, 1943, 97-104
• William Davies, The Tewkesbury Academy with sketches of its tutor and students (1914), n.d. (communicated by Mr. Idwal Lewis of N.L.W.)

Published date: 1959

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