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Author: Jones, John

Biography:

JONES, John (1740-1807: ancestry.com)

The poet was born in Bristol in 1740 to a once-affluent farrier who “fell into intemperance.” He was orphaned when in the year 1745 he lost both of his parents. Raised by his grandfather, a publican at Bewdley, he was in school until 1751 when he was apprenticed for seven years to a Worcestershire fluff-weaver at Kidderminster. In 1759, he became deeply in debt when he sued unsuccessfully to recover a twenty-pounds annuity. On 5 June 1760 John Jones, “weaver,” probably the poet, married Mary Wilkes. They had at least two children. He gained the patronage of Dr John Johnstone of Kidderminster, who took notice of the elegy he had published on the death of his infant child. He dedicated his 1769 Poems on Several Subjects to Johnstone; Johnstone helped him open a school at Kidderminster. He soon developed a high standing in his community, as evidenced by his 1765 election as vestry clerk, a position he retained for the balance of his years. Through Johnstone, he made the acquaintance of Lord Lyttleton, the father of Thomas Lyttleton (q.v.), who appears to have genuinely liked Jones and who gave him free access to the grounds of Hagley Park. His having been orphaned, the loss of his legacy, his child’s death, the hardships of daily life, the inscrutable will of God, and the consolations of religion, are themes that dominate his poetry. Several of his poems appeared in the 1760s in local newspapers and in nationally-distributed magazines. Reviews of his second publication, An Elegy on Winter and Other Poems (1779), were tepid, though not hostile. The brief comment in MR is typical: “When his situation and opportunities of attainments are considered, his poems are not destitute of merit.” He was buried at St Mary, Kidderminster, on 6 Feb. 1807. Though they corresponded, it is not known if he was related to Christopher Jones (q.v.). (Oxford Magazine 3 [Dec. 1769], 230; Aris’s Birmingham Gazette, 2 Jan. 1769; London Magazine 36 [1769], 303-04; MR 61 [1780], 74; Hereford Journal, 11 Feb. 1807; Monthly Magazine 23 [1807], 195) JC

 

Books written (1):