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Author: Jones, Thomas Cambria

Biography:

JONES, Thomas Cambria (1806-79: ancestry.co.uk)

He was born on 10 Apr. 1806 and baptised as “Thomas Jones” on 23 Apr. at Wrexham, the son of Thomas Jones, gunsmith, and his wife Constantia. His mother’s maiden name is unknown. His father moved to Wrexham in 1799 so they may have married elsewhere. Nothing is known of his known of his education. He added the epithet “Cambria” to his name when he became a poet and artist. The work listed here, Mortality (1835) had been written earlier, possibly as early as 1826, and was announced in the Cambrian Quarterly Magazine (1829) 1: 405-6 as “shortly to be published” but no  earlier edition earlier than 1835 has been found. Jones disowned it that printing and issued his preferred version. Another edition appeared in 1837. He edited a volume of Songs from the Mother-Land (1850). Some of his works are rare: the only copy of The Bard’s Dream (1828) is at Cardiff University Library; the only copy of  Sermons in Sonnets, on Texts taken from The Lord’s Prayer (1858) is at the National Library of Wales. His Last Poems (1865) carried an advertisement for forthcoming Poetical Works, but it does not seem to have been printed. He published widely in journals and newspapers, with his “Stanzas Written whilst Rambling through North Wales” (Westmorland Gazette, 1 Aug. 1835) being perhaps his most relevant addition to the corpus of Romantic topographical poetry. In 1851 he was still living in Wrexham with his occupation given as Poet and Portrait Painter. By 1861 he had moved to St. Asaph and was living as a lodger. The 1871 Census has him living at Duckspool, St Asaph. In his final years, unable to support himself and in ill health, he lived on the “kindness and charity of friends.” He died of chronic heart disease on 4 Nov. 1879, aged 72, and was buried at St. Asaph on 8 Nov. He never married. (A. N. Palmer, History of the Town of Wrexham [1893] 4: 48, 283; ancestry.co.uk 14 May 2022; findmypast.co.uk 14 May 2022; Rhyll Record and Advertiser 8 Nov. 1879) AA

 

Books written (2):

Wrexham: Printed by R. Hughes, 1828
Chester/ London/ Liverpool: printed by John Dixon/ Hugh Hughes/ Robinson and Co., 1835