Jones family history
Revd Thomas Jones (1737-1797) (great great great grandfather)
Thomas Jones, who bought Langstone in 1794, was the third son of David John. My uncle Colin records his birth year as 1738 but the Llanwrda baptism record shows 5 August 1737.
He moved from Carmarthenshire to Herefordshire during the 18th century, where he lived at Whitfield, now in Marstow: the farm near the Thorn Cross, the crossroads between the A4137 and the lane between Glewstone and Llangarron. His solicitors were D.T.M. Jones, a centuries old law firm in Brecon, whose documents are now in the National Library of Wales. In the oldest letter from 1773, discussing the family farm at Gwernfelen, Thomas is described as a Clerk living at Whitfield. Graham O’Connell, now at Whitfield, has found a Land Tax record dated 1776. There are "instructions for a lease for 21 years by Thomas Jones of Whitfield in the parish of Peterstow, Herefordshire, clerk, and Elizabeth his wife, and William Edwards of Llanfihangel-y-fedw, Monmouthshire, clerk, to Thomas Addis of the parish of Weston under Penyard, Herefordshire, yeoman, of the farms called [Porch?], Lowerhouse, Waygate and Whitfield, excepting the capital messuage of Whitfield, 1786 (a sketch map of Brilstone Farm has been drawn on the back)". i In 1793 the tenant farmer at Whitfield was Thomas Addis (the Addis family continued farming there until 1910). Thomas tried to sell Gwernfelen and the Pant in 1794, before and after buying Langstone; and was offered £200 for Pwllagddy in August. In 1797 when Thomas died the new owners at Whitfield were a Mr Thomas Price and a Mr Jones: perhaps his son, my great great grandfather?
Thomas didn’t get on well with his brother John. A summary of correspondence with D.T.M. Jones in October 1786 says: “If Lewis does not pay writer for the timber immediately, writer will employ another attorney. P.S. Writer's brother John is very unfit for a steward.” In December 1786 the summary says: “Writer wishes to know the reasons for the long delay in receiving Lewis's money; 'I wrote to my brother John many times about him and the Widow of Gwernfelen'.” I assume this was the widow of David, who died in 1784. In January 1794 the summary says: “The actions of writer's brother [presumably John], the son's publications [David] and the daughter's choice [Margaret], have totally excluded 'his' descendants from all writer's possessions; they have made room in writer's will for his nephew Tho[ma]s's name and some eminent divines to be inserted”.
An article about Langstone by John Cornforth in Country Life on 9 November 1967, ii largely based on information from my uncle, says that “the Joneses appear out of the mists of South Wales, from Pwllagddy in Camarthen”. Thomas Jones “was born in 1738 and ordained deacon in 1762, the year that his father gave him property at Llwynyrelyifsah. A few years later he began to buy property himself, but his main purchases date from the late 1780s and 1790s. Besides buying Langstone [for £8,035], he spent about £3,500 on other property.” The Country Life article says “Quite how he managed to do this is not at all clear from his papers, but a full examination of them might explain his origins.” If there are any papers, I hope I may find some at Langstone.
Richard Hodgkinson, estate manager for Henrietta Maria Atherton, who discovered the unsold Gwillym estates and advised her to sell them to help to settle debts, travelled to Herefordshire in January 1795 to follow up the sale. His diary for 30 January says that after a visit to Langstone, where they “called upon old Mr Cope [the tenant farmer] whom we found but in an indifferent state of Health”, they went to Trecella Farm and then “we went by Whitfield and called upon Parson Jones, the Purchaser of Langstone.” iii
Hodgkinson gives a splendidly scurrilous account of my great great great grandfather. “Divinity is most shamefully disgraced in Mr Jones. His appearance is that of a Drover or Butcher. His wife who is now living was a Mrs Edwards, a Widow, with who he & his Brother boarded. In consequence of an Agreement bet. Mr Jones & her Servant Maid she was kept in a state of intoxication for sevl days, in which condition he married her, & it is reported in the Village where they then lived that when she came to herself she did not know which of the Brothers she had married.”
Hodgkinson continues: “She has an annuity of £200 a year which drops when she dies. The servant above ment. continued to live with them after they were married. In consequence of a connection between Mr Jones & her, she was sent four times into Wales to lie in. He has also a Daur. a fine Girl abt 14 years of age whom I saw at his house, which he had by a Sister of the Servant's. Not long ago he advertised for Boarders in the News Paper in consequence of which advertisement four boys came soon after to reside with him, & are now in his house which are all well known to be the fruits of the connection between him & his Servant.”
My uncle's manuscript family tree shows that Thomas was married to Elizabeth and that there were four sons: John (baptized at Garway on 5 November 1781-1852), Joseph (1781?-?), Thomas (baptized on 3 November 1788-1804 and buried at Peterstow), and Matthew Henry (baptized at Skenfrith on 2 September 1796-13 August 1851); and an unnamed daughter (about 1781-31 March 1856). Are they the children Hodgkinson described? Thomas (the father) was already 42/43 when his eldest son, John, was born. This is a pattern that was repeated many times in subsequent generations. Many Joneses married late (or not at all) and had children late (or not at all).
Hodgkinson visited Herefordshire again in August 1795 to chase the buyers who were being slow to pay, inspect harvests etc. On 24 August he visited Langston and found that “The Hall is entirely uninhabited, old Mr Cope who lived in it being dead since I was last there.” iv So Thomas Jones was clearly not yet living here.
An extract from An Inventory of Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-houses in Central England (HMSO 1986), focused on Herefordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire, says that Ruxton chapel “was built c.1800 by the Rev. Thomas Jones, an Anglican clergyman of independent means who was much influenced by the evangelical preaching of the Rev. William George of Ross-on-Wye, and completed by his son the Rev. John Jones.” Such power from the grave: if Thomas Jones started the building, it must have been before 1797. Graham O’Connell has given a date of 1796. The work may well have started earlier, as Thomas bought the land in 1776: "A large 2 page vellum indenture recording the sale of a farm in Herefordshire between Edward Taylor of Lidney, Gloucestershire, yeoman, and Thomas Jones of Whitfield in the parish of Peterstow, Herefordshire, clerk. Dated the 1st day of January in the 16th year of the reign of George III [1776]. Property: All that capital messuage and farm called Wruxton in the parishes of Whitchurch, Marstow and Llangarron.” v
Mary Andere gives the following account: “the Revd Thomas Jones, an Anglican clergyman residing at Whitefield nearby, attended a gathering at a farm in Whitchurch called The Malt Shovel (it had once been a public house) in order to hear a well-known preacher from the Independent Church at Ross, the Revd William George. He was so affected by the sermon then heard that, an old record says, 'he wept like a child … and became quite another man.' Having considerable estates in the area, and becoming convinced that the parochial system of the Church of England frequently left much of the Gospel unpreached, he determined to build a chapel in order that his tenants might have the inestimable benefit of hearing the true gospel preached in all its simplicity and power. He therefore built Ruxton Chapel at his own expense – which apparently caused a rift with the nearby beneficed parson at Marstow!” vi
Thomas seems to have died at Whitfield. Papers at Langstone include a detailed nine-page statement of account for expenditure incurred between July 1797 and November 1799 in settling Revd Thomas Jones's affairs. At the head of the document it says "Mrs Esther Maxfield & Mr Dan.l Wheeler In the Affairs of Revd T. Jones to Tho.s Harvey" The first entry says "Journey to Whitfield on the death of the late Revd T. Jones & perusing Mr Jones's Will and advising thereon 13s 4d Horsehire 2s". There are lots of journeys and horsehire through the pages. Thomas is buried at Peterstow.
Matthew Henry (third son) was born at Longhope in Gloucestershire, studied at Queen's College, Cambridge (B.A. 1825, M.A. 1828, Doctor of Divinity (D.D.) 1840), a magistrate for the counties of Monmouth and Hereford and chairman of the Monmouth Board of Guardians. He purchased the advowson of the living of Llanddewi Scyrrid in about 1820. He married Matilda Hales (25 February 1791-21 December 1874) in 1834 in Monmouth. Sir Joseph Bradney records in his volume on the Hundred of Abergavenny published in 1906 that the advowson “has still remained in that family.” Matthew Henry was himself the incumbent until he died in 1851. The Patron for two institutions in 1852 (10 January and 7 August) was Matilda Jones, Matthew’s widow; the first incumbent being her brother, Richard Cox Hales. When John Walton Jones was appointed Rector in 1880 his father, Dr John Jones, was Patron (see here) .vii
Like his father Thomas and his older brother John, he may also have become an independent minister in his later years and may also have built a nonconformist chapel. He lived at Thatch Close, which was the subject of the 'HAN80' edition of "Herefordshire Archaeological News". A small nonconformist church was built there when Matthew was living there. The owner of Thatch Close told the researchers: "We were told by the owner that people came from abroad claiming that this room had been a chapel established in 1839 or so where their ancestors had been baptised."
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i https://archives.library.wales/index.php/octavius-morgans-antiquarian-papers-2 (return to text)
ii Cornforth, J., Langstone Court, Herefordshire, Country Life Vol. CXLII No. 3688, 9 November 1967 (return to text)
iii Wood, F. and K. ed., A Lancashire Gentleman: The Letters and Journals of Richard Hodgkinson
1763-1847, Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, Stroud, 1992, pages 78-79 (return to text)
iv ibid. page 86 (return to text)
v http://www.durtnall.org.uk/DEEDS/Gloucestershire%20301-400.htm, ID 336 (return to text)
vi Andere, M., Homes and Houses in Herefordshire, Express Logic, Hereford, 1977, page 46 (return to text)
vii Bradney, J.A., A History of Monmouthshire, Vol 1 Part 2a, The Hundred of Abergavenny, Academy Books Limited, London, 1991, pages 280-81 (return to text)