Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jones, Samuel (d.1732)

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1400778Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 30 — Jones, Samuel (d.1732)1892Thomas Seccombe (1866-1923)

JONES, SAMUEL (d. 1732), poet, has, from the fact that in the dedication of his ‘Poetical Miscellanies’ to Hugh Machell of Crackenthorpe Hall, Appleby, he subscribed himself ‘your obedient son,’ been assumed to be a natural child of that gentleman. Jones was a clerk and afterwards from 1709 to 1731 queen's searcher in the custom house of Whitby. Besides the ‘Poetical Miscellanies,’ which were published by Curll in 1714, he wrote ‘Whitby; a Poem occasioned by Mr. Andrew Long's Recovery from the Jaundice by drinking of Whitby Spaw Waters,’ 1718, 8vo. No copy of this last work is known to be extant, and its complete disappearance has excited some curiosity among book collectors and local antiquaries (cf. Notes and Queries, 4th ser. iii. 506, iv. 346; Whitby Repository, September 1867). According to Nichols's ‘Illustrations’ (iii. 787), Jones's writings were much commended in his day. But the ‘Miscellanies,’ a copy of which is in the British Museum, hardly justifies favourable criticism. Jones died at his house in Grape Lane, Whitby, and was buried in the parish church of St. Mary on 24 Dec. 1732.

[Gent. Mag. 1828, pt. ii. p. 19; Gough's Topogr. ii. 449; Gent's Hist. of Hull (Addenda); Charlton's Hist. of Whitby.]

T. S.