Author: Jones, William
Biography:
Jones, William (1746-94: WBIS)
Born in London, he was the youngest son of Mary (Nix) Jones and an eminent Welsh mathematician, William Jones. Though his father died before Jones's third birthday, leaving the family with only modest means, Jones won a scholarship to Harrow and went on to University College Oxford (BA 1768, MA 1773). He was a linguistic prodigy, adding to the conventional classical and modern languages and Hebrew a special interest in Arabic and Persian. Academic and civil-service commissions for translations followed. For a more secure profession, he also trained as a lawyer, was called to the bar in 1774, and spent several years on the Welsh circuits. He fell in love with Anna Maria Shipley in 1766 but was not in a position to marry her until 1783. In the meantime, he began to publish on several fronts: pioneering translations of "Asiatick" poems, pamphlets and poems in the Whig cause, and essays on comparative law and commercial law. The great opportunity of his life came in 1783, when he was appointed to the supreme court in Calcutta and granted a knighthood. With his new wife, he settled in India, added Sanskrit to his linguistic repertoire, and founded the Asiatick Society of Bengal. Over the next decade, he contributed a third of the essays in the Society's journal, Asiatick Researches, a publication widely reprinted and excerpted in European periodicals. He was a leader in the development of the theory of a common source of Indo-European languages. His translation of the Sacontalá (1789) was a milestone of orientalism. In his work as a colonial judge he was also responsible for a comprehensive analysis of Hindu law (1794). But Jones and his wife suffered from the climate. She set out on a return journey to Britain in December 1793. He died unexpectedly of a liver infection in April 1794, and is buried in Calcutta. His wife edited his complete works in 9 vols. with a biographical preface by Lord Teignmouth (1799, 2nd edn. 1807). (ODNB 26 June 2019)
Other Names:
- Sir W. Jones
- Sir William Jones