JONES, John (1777-1842), of Ystrad Lodge, Carm.

John Jones, a Welsh-speaking ‘St. Peter’s boy’, whose politics were largely personal and frequently determined by local issues, was a leading advocate on the Carmarthen circuit and commanded political support in Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. His father had been the agent for the Vaughan estate of Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, bequeathed in 1804 to the Grenvillite 1st Baron Cawdor, and Jones had become mayor of Carmarthen on their Blue interest in 1809. Cawdor, however, refused to support his parliamentary ambitions and in 1812 and 1818 he had contested Carmarthen unsuccessfully on the rival Red interest of Lord Dynevor. Another West Wales Red, Sir John Owen*, had facilitated his election for Pembroke Boroughs on a vacancy in 1815, but in 1818 he had been obliged under a local arrangement to make way there for Cawdor’s nominee John Hensleigh Allen*. Add. 40363, f. 144; Carmarthen Jnl. 3 July 1818; Carm. RO, Cawdor mss 2/136; D. Williams, Rebecca Riots (1971), 24; M. Cragoe, An Anglican Aristocracy: The Moral Economy of the Landed Estate in Carm. 1832-1895, pp. 117-18; HP Commons, 1790-1820, iv. 322-3. His personal following in Carmarthen ensured that ‘there will be no peace in this borough until Mr. Jones will be our representative’, and having increased Tory representation on the corporation, which had been under Whig control since the charter was renewed in 1764, he challenged Cawdor’s heir John Frederick Campbell* there again in 1820, but desisted for fear of raising a Whig opposition to the election of Dynevor’s son George Rice Rice (afterwards Trevor) for the county. NLW, Dolaucothi mss V2/36; R.D. Rees, ‘Parl. Rep. S. Wales 1790-1830’ (Univ. of Reading Ph.D. thesis, 1962), 192-3, 389; PP (1835), xxiii. 341; Cambrian, 12, 26 Feb., 11 Mar.; Carmarthen Jnl. 25 Feb., 10 Mar. 1820; Cawdor mss 2/135; Dolaucothi mss V2/38. He contested Carmarthen successfully at no personal cost when Campbell succeeded to the peerage in 1821, and celebrated his return and the borough’s liberation at Cardigan and towns throughout Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. Carmarthen Jnl. 15, 22, 29 June, 6, 13 July 1821; Cawdor mss 2/135-7; G.E. Evans, ‘Morgan (Furnace) Pprs.’, Trans. Carm. Antiq. Soc. xx (1926-7), 57-58. Quo warranto proceedings against 21 known Cawdor supporters also succeeded, and by 1822 the Reds controlled Carmarthen corporation. Cawdor mss 2/137; Carmarthen Jnl. 11 Oct. 1822; PP (1835), xxiii. 347.

Jones intervened readily in debate, but the Liverpool government could rarely be sure of his support, despite his professed allegiance to the new home secretary Peel. He presented Carmarthen’s petition against the Insolvent Debtors Act, 20 Feb. 1822, and criticized the government’s retrenchment measures as ‘insufficient to afford effectual relief to the agricultural interest’. He acknowledged that lower malt duties would assist barley growing areas, but claimed that greater benefit, particularly for the poor, would be derived from reductions in the duties on salt and leather, and urged ministers to heed the ‘sentiments of the country as they were expressed at county meetings ... except on the subject of parliamentary reform’. The Times, 21 Feb. 1822. He suggested a reduction in junior admiralty lords, an end to state lotteries, and a tax on gaming as possible remedies, before dividing against the government’s relief proposals, 21 Feb., and voted for a gradual reduction in the salt duties, 28 Feb. He failed to persuade ministers that the agriculture committee should consider the relative benefits of lower taxes on malt and salt, 4 Mar., but renewed his efforts when the report on the malt tax was brought up, 6 Mar., on presenting petitions, 30 Apr., and again, 28 June, earning the sobriquet ‘Jones yr Halen’ (Jones the Salt) in Carmarthen. Ibid. 5, 7 Mar., 3 May 1822; Rees, 392. He spoke in favour of the government’s scheme to finance naval and military pensions from the sinking fund, 3 May, and against the vagrancy laws amendment bill, which affected Carmarthen as a popular stopover on the route to county Waterford, 21 May. The Times, 22 May 1822. He voted to limit inquiry into Irish tithes, 19 June 1822.

Jones had sat on the 1817 select committee on the administration of justice in Wales and had sought since 1818 to legislate to reform the courts of great sessions, with a view to preventing their abolition, which the Blues now advocated. His remedial bill, which in 1820 he had entrusted to Charles Warren, had made no progress. A measure based on the 1817 and 1820-1 committee reports promoted by Cawdor (as Campbell had become) and Allen fared similarly, 23 May 1822. Jones agreed with them that the reports should be further considered and that Welsh judges should be appointed by the lord chancellor and barred from sitting in the Commons, and with Peel’s acquiescence, on the 30th he introduced his bill ‘to enlarge and extend the powers of the judges of the several courts of great sessions in Wales’, which was printed and held over. Ibid. 31 May 1822; Seren Gomer, v (1822), 221. He reintroduced it, 18 Mar. 1823, but, as Hume revealed, it lacked provisions to prevent judges being Members. He brought up favourable petitions from the grand juries of Cardiganshire, 18 Apr., and Carmarthenshire, 2 May 1823, but the measure was repeatedly deferred and timed out. The Times, 19 Mar. 1823; CJ, lxxviii. 133, 135, 227, 276-8, 379. He voted in Whitmore’s minority of 25 for a gradual reduction to 60s. a bushel in the corn pivot price, 26 Feb., but against using the sinking fund to finance a £2,000,000 cut in taxation, 3 Mar. 1823. He was a speaker for the army estimates, 7 Mar., and tried to justify his vote for the national debt reduction bill at its third reading, 17 Mar., but could not be heard. The Times, 18 Mar. 1823. He voted against repealing the assessed taxes, 18 May, but against government for inquiry into the prosecution of the Dublin Orange rioters, 22 Apr. During it, he probed deeply into the background, political affiliation (especially Orange party connections) and whereabouts of the witnesses heard, 7, 8, 9, 23 May. He failed by 173-42 to ‘consign the subject to oblivion’ by adjournment, 27 May. Ibid. 8, 24 May 1823. When the Morning Chronicle of 4 June published an account of the Commons proceedings on the Borthwick case (3 June) that ridiculed the majority in which he had voted, he raised it as breach of privilege, but had to withdrew his motion for want of government support. Ibid. 5 June 1823. He cast a wayward vote for recommittal of the silk manufacture bill, which was of local interest in Carmarthen, 9 June, but divided with ministers against inquiry into the currency, 12 June, and for the Scottish juries bill, 20 June. He abhorred and opposed flogging in prisons, 7 July 1823. Charles Williams Wynn* recommended him to Lord Liverpool for preferment that autumn and Jones himself sought Peel’s intervention on behalf of constituents anxious to avoid appointments as sheriff. Add. 38296, f. 356; 40359, ff. 78-80; 40360, f. 66; 40370, ff. 133-5.

On 16 Feb. 1824 Jones obtained leave to introduce his bill to extend the power of judges in Wales. The Times, 17 Feb. 1824. Allen dismissed it as ‘trifling in its remedy and likely to be most pernicious in its effects’, but he failed (by 42-19) to kill it, 11 Mar., and it was ‘passed with difficulty’, 24 May, and enacted, heavily amended, 24 June 1824, after Dynevor and lord chancellor Eldon backed it in the Lords. The Cambrian saw ‘great benefit’ in ‘Jones’s Act’ and commended ‘his zeal and activity in framing and carrying the same into effect’. Ibid. 22 June; Cambrian, 26 June 1824, 7 Nov. 1829; Seren Gomer, vii (1824), 92, 224; CJ, lxxix.150, 249, 378, 407, 530, 536; M. Escott, ‘How Wales lost its judicature: the making of the 1830 Act for the Abolition of the Courts of Great Sessions’, Trans. Hon. Soc. Cymmrodorion, (2006), 135-59. He voted to consider the usury laws repeal bill, 27 Feb., but after a Carmarthenshire meeting declared against it, 30 Mar., he divided accordingly, 8 Apr. He brought up a private petition for revision of the insolvency laws, 2 Mar. 1824. The Times, 3 Mar.; Cambrian, 26 Mar., 3 Apr. 1824. He divided with opposition on the aliens bill, 23 Mar., 2 Apr. After being turned down for employment as a commissioner on the Irish land valuation survey, he wrote to Peel, 26 Mar.:

I am far from thinking that any claim on government exists on my part. The support I have given to their measures has been dictated by principle; and whatever may be the result of this or any other application on my behalf, will continue disinterested ... Your public conduct has pointed you out to me as a proper political guide, and as the only individual of His Majesty’s government who has had and who will most probably retain an influence over my vote. I have however written to Lord Liverpool and Mr. [Stephen Rumbold] Lushington* on this occasion. Add 40364, f. 144.

He argued that to deny farmers and tenants access under the game laws to game on their land would be an ‘unwarrantable invasion’ of the rights of property, 1 Apr. He presented a petition against West Indian slavery from Milford Haven, 9 Apr., and others from Carmarthen for repeal of the window tax, 11 May, and in condemnation of the indictment in Demerara of the Methodist missionary John Smith, 26 May. Seren Gomer praised him for voting accordingly, 11 June. The Times, 2, 10 Apr., 12, 27 May; Seren Gomer, vii (1824), 224-5. He voted against ending military flogging, 5 Mar., and for the Irish insurrection bill, 14 June 1824. At the mayoral election in Carmarthen at Michaelmas he canvassed for the Red nominee Daniel Prytherch and was accused of insulting Cawdor’s former agent, the Rev. Thomas Benyon. He was also a speaker at the corporation dinner and assisted with plans and the subscription for a memorial to the late Sir Thomas Picton†, whose brother Edward was one of his principal local supporters. Cawdor mss 136, R.B. Williams to Cawdor, 19 Sept.; Cambrian, 8 Oct. 1824; Add. 40375, f. 70; 40377, ff. 215-18, 343.

Jones, according to a radical publication of 1825, ‘attended frequently and voted in general with government’. Session of Parl. 1825, p. 471. He received a month’s leave on urgent private business, 14 Feb., and presented his constituents’ petitions for repeal of the window tax, 21 Mar., and against the Western Ship Canal bill, 21 Apr. The Times, 22 Mar., 22 Apr. 1825. A staunch churchman and freemason, Oxford DNB. he divided against Catholic relief, 21 Apr., 10 May, having presented an unfavourable Carmarthen petition, 3 May. He voted against the attendant Irish franchise bill, 9 May. Cambrian, 30 Apr.; The Times, 4 May 1825. He opposed the Welch Iron and Mining Company bill and criticized its backers for frequently absenting themselves from the select committee, 18 May. When the report on judges’ salaries was considered, 20 May, he voted in a minority of 29 against making puisne judges immovable. He divided with administration for the duke of Cumberland’s annuity bill, 30 May, 10 June. He called for extra time to consider the Hampshire and Berkshire canal bill and criticized those who had prevented it going forward, 20 June. He voted for the spring guns bill, 21 June. He pointed to inconsistencies in Hume’s endorsement of the Glasgow Free Press’s petition criticizing unstamped papers, 29 June 1825. The Times, 11, 21, 30 June 1825. During the recess he dealt with patronage requests and prepared for the next election by drawing up new electors’ lists for Carmarthen. NLW ms 481 E; NLW, Glansevin mss 6. Jones moved the first resolution at the Carmarthen anti-slavery meeting, 25 Jan., and presented their petition as requested, 13 Apr. 1826. Cambrian, 28 Jan.; The Times, 14 Apr. 1826. He was for legislating to give freeholders in counties corporate the right to vote in the counties from which they had been detached, 26 Apr., 2 May, The Times, 27 Apr. 1826. and in favour of bringing up the report on the corn bill, 8 May, because he thought that the admission of bonded corn might relieve distress. However, heeding the opposition of the Carmarthenshire clergy, who feared reduced tithe revenues, he reserved the right to vote against the measure and did so, 8 May, 11 June. Cambrian, 30 Apr. 1825. He voted to permit adjourned sessions to grant alehouse licences, 12 May 1826. At the general election in June he canvassed on behalf of Rice Trevor in Carmarthenshire and the Owens in Pembrokeshire and came in for Carmarthen unopposed. His expenses were defrayed by his constituents. Addressing a crowd of 5,000 afterwards, he said he would support retrenchment, religious liberty for all save Roman Catholics, and the abolition of colonial slavery. He also explained that although he supported the ministry’s free trade proposals, he would oppose them on corn in order to protect agriculture. Carmarthen Jnl. 26 May, 2, 9, 16, 23 June; Cambrian, 27 May, 17, 24 June 1826. The mayor and corporation of Kidwelly and the farmers celebrated his election, and the magistrates organized a subscription to mark his ‘impartial conduct’ as chairman of the quarter sessions with a gift of plate. Evans, Trans. Carm. Antiq. Soc. xx. 61; Cambrian, 1 July 1826, 29 Apr. 1827.

Jones divided against Catholic relief, 6 Mar. 1827, and when Peel resigned rather than serve in the pro-Catholic Canning’s ministry, he wrote to offer him his support, but made it clear that he would not vote against repeal of the Test Acts, ‘as my own conviction as well as the wishes of the major part of my constituents incline me to support such repeal if the matter shall come before the House of Commons’. Add. 40393, ff. 237, 264-6. During Canning’s ministry, reporters found his speeches difficult to record ‘as he sat under the gallery’; The Times, 23 May, 7 June 1827. but he certainly deplored the way in which repeal ‘had been suffered to sleep’, 22 May, 6 June, and strenuously endorsed a favourable Carmarthen petition, 14 June. Seren Gomer, x (1827), 218; The Times, 12 May, 7, 15 June 1827. He spoke and voted against the Canadian waterways grant, 12 June 1827. The Times, 13 June 1827. He assisted with the Carmarthen corporation elections at Michaelmas and received a gift of plate worth £350 at the magistrates’ dinner in October. Cambrian, 6, 20 Oct. 1827. He led the dancing as usual at Llandovery ball and hosted a dinner for the magistrates, 17 Jan. 1828. Ibid. 1 Dec. 1827; Dolaucothi mss L3028. On 28 Jan. (and again, 19 Feb.) he attended meetings at Llanelli to organize resistance to Cawdor’s attempt to levy local market tolls. Cambrian, 1 Mar.; Carmarthen Jnl. 7, 14 Mar. 1828. When Peel returned to office as home secretary and leader of the House in the duke of Wellington’s ministry Jones, who had little private fortune, again requested ‘one of the little subordinate stations in the treasury, admiralty or India board or in some other office where the change of administration may occasion a vacancy ... [or a] judgeship on the Brecon circuit’. Owen testified to his ‘zeal, assiduity and abilities’, and Dynevor to his exertion ‘in all business relative to the Principality in the ... Commons and particularly the Welsh judicature bill’. Rice Trevor added:

When ... Mr. Canning became premier he refused an offer made to him (I believe a judge in India) feeling that he could not consistently with his political principles accept of employment under that government.

However, it proved ‘impossible to include the name of Mr. Jones in the recent arrangement’. Add. 40395, ff. 30-35, 57-59, 92. Presenting the Carmarthen Dissenters’ petition for repeal of the Test Acts, 12 Feb. 1828, Jones demonstrated how a mayor or returning officer could have ‘the unconstitutional power of electing a candidate of his choice’ as Dissenters would not swear an oath, but Protestants occasionally conformed and could thereby take the Test. He brought up further repeal petitions from West Wales, 15, 20, 22 Feb., and divided for it, 26 Feb. Cambrian, 16 Feb., 1, 8 Mar.; Carmarthen Jnl. 29 Feb. 1828. As a member of the committee on the Llanelli railroad and docks bill, he tried to convince a sceptical John Johnes of Dolaucothi that ‘great public benefit will result from the adoption of the measure, inasmuch as there will be competition for coal’. Dolaucothi mss L3029, 3030, 4095. He divided against Catholic relief, 12 May, and strenuously opposed and was a minority teller against the borough polls bill 15 May, 6, 27 June, which he belittled as one of seven bills introduced by seven Members ‘all suited to the meridians of their own boroughs and limiting the rights of electors’. He spoke against the alehouse licensing bill, whose object he claimed was ‘to interfere like a side-wind with the rights and privileges of chartered towns and boroughs’ to issue licences, 21 May. He presented and endorsed a hostile Carmarthen petition, 2 June, and voted against the small notes bill, 16, 27 June. He complained of the high stamp duty levied on the articles of attorneys’ clerks, 16 June, supported the additional churches bill, 3 July, and divided with government against ordnance reductions, 4 July 1828. In August he was one of the principal speakers at the official opening of the Picton memorial in Carmarthen and a croupier at the celebration dinner. Cambrian, 9 Aug. 1828. After the borough elections, he encouraged Carmarthen to seek legislation to permit borough magistrates to try petty larcenies four times a year, but although they authorized him to introduce a bill, he delayed doing so. Carmarthen Jnl. 24 Oct.; Cambrian, 8 Nov. 1828.

The patronage secretary Planta correctly observed in February 1829 that Jones remained opposed on principle to Catholic emancipation; but he also deprecated ‘the attempts which I know are made to obtain signatures to anti-Catholic petitions’, 4 Mar., and urged Members to

suspend their judgement, until they know what is the nature of the measure intended to be brought forward by ... ministers. When I see what a sudden and unexpected change has taken place in the highest quarters, I think we ought to give those persons credit for sincerity; and I must suppose that the change in their opinions has arisen from there being only a choice of evils.

He divided for emancipation, 6 Mar., giving what the anti-Catholic Carmarthen Journal of 17 Apr. described as a vote for Peel rather than the Catholics. Presenting Llanarthney’s hostile petition, 12 Mar., he said he could not support its prayer, although it was prepared fairly, for he had ‘made up my mind to vote in favour of the bill’, thinking it ‘more dangerous not to relieve Roman Catholics than to do so’. Cambrian, 21 Mar. 1829. He did not divide again on the measure, which Dynevor and his son opposed, but he voted against permitting Daniel O’Connell to take his seat without swearing the oath of supremacy, 18 May. He found fault with the county bridges bill, 12 May, and argued against making any distinction in the anatomy regulation bill between the unclaimed bodies of the rich and the poor, 15 May. John Nash, the architect of Carmarthen gaol, St. Peter’s church and the Picton memorial, was his personal friend and he defended him against allegations of profiteering over the Buckingham House contract, 25, 27 May; he was appointed to the committee of inquiry that day. He presented a private petition calling for Sunday morning and evening services to be held in all churches and chapels, 1 June 1829. In Carmarthenshire during the recess he attended the races, sessions, borough elections and meetings on the Welsh judicature. Ibid. 26 Sept., 10, 24 Oct. 1829.

The Whig lawyer Henry Brougham’s speech on 7 Feb. 1828 had vilified the Welsh courts, and their future had been referred to a commission and discussed in Cawdor’s pro-abolition Letter ... to Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst. Cambrian, 16 Feb.; Cawdor, Letter ... to Lyndhurst; Carmarthen Jnl. 5, 19 Sept. 1828. Responding to the commissioners’ questionnaires, Jones praised and urged further reform of the courts, but denigrated the Welsh language and said that he regretted the way charity schools ‘afforded the means of perpetuating the language which was before greatly in decline’. He saw no advantage in administering common law from Westminster because ‘a few improvements easy of execution may be necessary’ and ‘a few wealthy individuals ... cry out for the measure’, and disliked the proposed schemes to divide and amalgamate counties, but suggested separate circuits for North and South Wales, holding Brecon and Radnor assizes alternately in Brecon and Presteigne, and the assizes for Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire in Cardigan. PP (1829), ix. 43-44, 62-63, 390-2, 427-30 and passim.; Carmarthen Jnl. 18 Apr. 1829. Carmarthen magistrates countered pro-abolition memorials got up by Cawdor’s agents in Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, Glamorgan and Merionethshire, and at the Carmarthenshire (23 Oct.) and Carmarthen (26 Oct.) meetings which petitioned against change, Jones, whom Allen accused of acting from self-interest as a lawyer, ‘deprecated any party feeling being introduced’, but poured scorn on Cawdor’s supporters. He asserted that justice was both cheaper and more efficient in Wales than in England and predicted correctly that Carmarthen would not welcome the proposals just because its own assizes would continue. However, he conceded that there was ‘little interest in the House of Commons in Welsh justice at present’. Cambrian, 7 Mar., 2 May, 17, 31 Oct., 7 Nov.; Carmarthen Jnl. 16, 30 Oct. 1829. His ability to oppose the 1830 administration of justice bill by which the change was enacted was hampered by Peel’s reluctance to divulge its details, 1, 3 Mar., but he presented and endorsed petitions against change, 9 Mar., had the bill postponed to allow the magistrates time to comment, 17 Mar., and denounced it at its second reading, 27 Apr., as ‘the veriest skeleton of a bill I have ever seen. It would take six months in a committee to put flesh on its bones’. Others agreed, and ministers admitted it was full of incongruities, but Jones, who raised further queries, 3, 18, 29 May, and presented hostile petitions, 14 May, 18 June, failed (by 129-30) to prevent its committal that day or to delay its enactment, 2, 5 July. Carmarthen Jnl. 2, 9 July 1830. He ceased to practice when the new system came into operation, 12 Oct. 1830, but still coveted and was repeatedly denied ‘the professional honour of a silk gown’. Add. 40401, f. 199. Jones voted against Lord Blandford’s parliamentary reform scheme, 18 Feb., and enfranchising Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, 23 Feb. 1830. He presented petitions against the Kidwelly enclosure bill, 15 Mar., and the game laws, 17 Mar., and divided for Jewish emancipation, 17 May, and against the Galway franchise bill, 25 May 1830. In king’s bench that month, he brought an action for debt (£240) against John Michael Goodere. Glansevin mss 376. At the dissolution in July his constituents were reported to be ready to return him unopposed without cost, but he provided a pre-election dejeuné for the gentlemen and post-election beer for the populace at Ystrad. His stance on the Test Acts and the administration of justice bill was praised but he readily acknowledged that many disapproved of his pro-Catholic vote. He also mentioned his chance of office in India, which he now claimed to have refused in the interests of Carmarthen. He said that he remained a supporter of the ministry, but would vote against them as necessary. At the celebrations afterwards, the sheriff, Rees Goring Thomas, claimed that Jones had ‘annihilated the Blue-Red divide’ in Carmarthen. Carmarthen Jnl. 2, 23, 30 July, 6, 13 Aug.; Cambrian, 7, 14 Aug. 1830.

Ministers listed Jones among their ‘friends’ and he divided with them when they were brought down on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830. At a Carmarthen meeting that month he challenged local abolitionists to prove the scriptural basis for opposition to West Indian slavery, but he nevertheless presented and endorsed many anti-slavery petitions from Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire between November 1830 and April 1831. Carmarthen Jnl. 19, 26 Nov. 1830, 4 Feb. 1831. He brought up others against the coastwise coal duties, 11 Feb. 1831, campaigned against the drawback duties on printed calicoes, which were disliked in Carmarthen, and urged that the bridge across the River Blackwater be completed, 28 Mar. Ibid. 25 Feb. 1831. A Carmarthen borough meeting, 22 Feb., amended the reform petition proposed by Cawdor’s agent, the Unitarian attorney George Thomas, so that it included a resolution for the ballot. Rees, 112; Carmarthen Jnl. 25 Feb. 1831. Jones had stayed away, but he presented the petition, 28 Feb., and afterwards published an open letter declaring that he was ‘friendly to reform’. He advocated transferring the franchise from decaying boroughs to populous towns, restricting the borough franchise to residents (and current voters), and enfranchising copyholders and long leaseholders in the counties, but he refused to support the ballot, short parliaments, universal suffrage, or the disfranchisement of existing voters. Carmarthen Jnl. 22 Apr. 1831. He divided against the Grey ministry’s reform bill at its second reading, 22 Mar. He said that it should be drafted by a national convention, not Parliament, 24 March, claimed that to disfranchise Criccieth but not Wiston was partisan, and asserted that as in Carmarthen, many resident lower class voters would be disfranchised by the measure, while many non-residents would retain their votes, 25 Mar. The bill lost much local support in Carmarthen once it was known that Llanelli would become its contributory, in what the Carmarthen Journal of 18 Mar. described as ‘a piece of pure political meddling for which there exists not a shade of necessity’. Addressing a Carmarthen reform meeting disrupted by drunken intruders, 12 Apr., Jones, or ‘Jack Slack’ as he was subsequently called after the pugilist, showed that he could still use his fists. Justifying his anti-reform vote, he repeated his statement of 28 Feb., argued against disfranchising boroughs without proof of corruption, suggested petitioning for a separate Llanelli Boroughs constituency and projected himself as the defender of the rights of poor voters liable to disfranchisement. Ibid. 18 Mar., 15, 22 Apr.; Cambrian, 16 Apr. 1831. He divided for Gascoyne’s wrecking amendment, 19 Apr. 1831. His opponent at the ensuing general election was the naval captain and reformer John George Philipps of Cwmgwili, whose grandfather had represented the borough, 1796-1803. Assisted by Allen, Philipps criticized Jones’s parliamentary record, but he stood by his statements of 28 Feb. and 12 Apr. and promised to vote for the principle of reform if not all its details. Carmarthen Jnl. 29 Apr. 1831; Cawdor mss 2/136; Dolaucothi mss L3031, 4103. Carmarthen lived up to its reputation for violent contests and the poll was abandoned with three votes cast on each side. Philipps petitioned without success and on 10 Aug. a second election was called. D.J.V. Jones, ‘Carmarthen Riots of 1831’, WHR, iv (1968-9), 132-6; Yr Erfangylydd, i (1831), 193; E.V. Jones, ‘Through Riot to Parl.’ Carm. Historian, xiv (1977), 59-63; Carmarthen Jnl. 29 Apr., 6, 13, May, 3 June; The Times, 11 Aug. 1831; NLW, Highmead mss 3151, 3152. Jones spent at least £1,400 and received £300 from Tory Charles Street funds, for it was felt that his vote on the civil list had cost him support. Wellington mss, Holmes to Arbuthnot, 9 Aug., Arbuthnot to Wellington, 10 Aug. 1831. He outpolled Philipps, but the lampooning and physical violence continued and he was wounded in the head at his chairing, 25 Aug. 1831. Dolaucothi mss V21/40; G.E. Evans, ‘Election Squibs’, Trans. Carm. Antiq. Soc. vii (1911-12), 82-83; Carmarthen Jnl. 26 Aug. 1831; Jones, WHR, iv. 136-8.

He presented Kidwelly’s petition to become a contributory of Carmarthen, 12 Sept., and divided for the passage of the reintroduced reform bill, 21 Sept., and the second reading of the Scottish reform bill, 23 Sept. 1831. He called for a new election writ for Pembrokeshire, 23, 26 Sept., and after it was issued received a fortnight’s leave on urgent private business, 28 Sept., which he spent canvassing for the successful candidate Owen, another convert to reform. The aftermath of the by-election for Jones, who was never one to avoid the fray, was a duel with the reform candidate Robert Fulke Greville at Tafarn Spite, where, according to the Cambrian, he ‘received Mr. Greville’s shot, and refusing to apologise, fired his pistol in the air’. The Times, 25 Oct.; Cambrian, 29 Oct. 1831; Jones, Carm. Historian, xiv. 64-65; D. Williams, ‘Pemb. Elections of 1831’, WHR, i (1960-3), 55-56. He divided for the revised reform bill at its second reading, 17 Dec. 1831. On 1 Feb. 1832 he referred to the effect which Queen Anne’s bounty and livings worth less than £10 a year could have on clergymen’s voting rights, which the treasury admitted they had not allowed for, and pressed that they be retained. He argued against tinkering with the disfranchisement lists to replace Amersham with Midhurst and voted to retain Appleby in schedule A., 21 Feb. He divided for the bill’s provisions for Helston, 23 Feb., and Tower Hamlets, 28 Feb., but against separate representation for Gateshead, 5 Mar., an issue of principle for those who hoped Merthyr Tydfil would receive its own Member. Carmarthen Jnl. 16 Mar. 1832. He had to miss the division on the bill’s third reading, 22 Mar., to attend the Carmarthenshire assizes, where George Thomas was fined £5 for insulting him in Pembrokeshire at the 1831 general election. A witness alleged that Jones had bought a pistol in order to shoot Thomas there ‘like a dog’. Ibid. 23 Mar.; Cambrian, 24, 31 Mar. 1832; Seren Gomer, xv (1832), 189; Williams, WHR, i. 51. He voted for the address calling on the king to appoint only ministers who would carry the reform bill unimpaired, 10 May, and against a Conservative amendment to the Scottish reform bill, 1 June. He divided against government on the Russian-Dutch loan, 26 Jan., but on 12 July he was listed with the absent reformers. He voted with administration on relations with Portugal, 9 Feb., but in the minority against military punishments, 16 Feb. He spoke briefly on the use of the Commons Journals as evidence in courts of law, 25 June 1832.

Borough elections in Carmarthen remained unruly and it was rumoured that Jones would stand for the county’s new second seat or that Hugh Owen Owen would make way for him in Pembroke Boroughs at the December 1832 general election. However, he contested the new Carmarthen and Llanelli constituency, where his surprise defeat by the Liberal William Henry Yelverton of Whitland Abbey was attributed to ‘the tyrannical conduct of the magistracy to George Thomas [jailed after the borough election disturbances] ... which united the tradesmen of the town against him, even those who never interfered before’. Welshman, 20 July 1832; Highmead mss 3156; Welshman, 21 Dec.; Yr Efangylydd, ii (1832), 355-6; Dynevor mss 159/4; 160/12; 161/5; Carmarthen Jnl. 3, 24 Aug., 28 Dec. 1832; M. Cragoe, Culture, Politics and National Identity in Wales, 1832-1886, pp. 51, 55, 243, and ‘Carm. Co. Politics, 1804-37’, Carm. Antiquary, xxx (1994), 75-79. He did not contest Carmarthen again, but stood unsuccessfully for the county as a Conservative in 1835 and successfully in 1837. Though repeatedly denied party patronage, he retained the seat until his death in November 1842. Add. 40414, f. 299; 40419, f. 348; 40473, ff. 6-8; 40510, f. 321; 40511, ff. 162-4; Dolaucothi mss L3032, 3163. Although he had helped to endow Carmarthen’s Welsh language church, St. David’s, he was buried with masonic pomp at St. Peter’s, and recalled as an ‘able and active representative’ who had endured a ‘series of harassing electioneering struggles’ to acquire ‘probably the greatest influence of any private gentleman in the Principality’. His portrait by Thomas Brigstocke was presented to the county. Welshman, 11, 18 Nov.; Carmarthen Jnl. 11, 18 Nov. 1842. He bequeathed Ystrad, her home, to his unmarried sister Mary Ann, subject to yearly rent charges to provide for his ‘natural son Richard Jones’ and others. However, he was found to be insolvent and by August 1844 his assets, which included a library of 4,000 books, the 225-acre Ystrad and 159-acre Llanbadarn Fawr estates, tithes of St. Peter’s commuted at £920 and rights to fees for the north chancel, had all been sold. PROB 11/1979/331; IR26/1645/257; Welshman, 17 Feb., 17 July, 18 Aug. 1843; Carmarthen Jnl. 2 Aug. 1844.