Shropshire, where he had four churches under his care (December 1780 to July 1781); of Oswestry (July 1781 to January 1782); of Loppington, near Wem (January to November 1785); and finally of Great Creaton in Northamptonshire (November 1785 to 1828), serving also Spratton from 1810 to 1828. Jones was made rector of Creaton in 1828. He resigned in 1833, died on 7 Jan. 1845, and was buried in Spratton churchyard. He left 12l. a year to St. Davids College, Lampeter, to be given for the best essay in Welsh.
Jones and Thomas Charles of Bala were the Welsh clergymen who first conceived the idea of forming bible societies. Jones prevailed upon the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge to publish in 1799 an edition of ten thousand copies of the Welsh bible. These were soon sold out, and his repeated application for another edition met with refusals. His proposal to form a new society for Wales which should print smaller editions at Chester, Shrewsbury, and elsewhere, proved a failure. But when Charles mentioned Jones's project to the committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in December 1802, the British and Foreign Bible Society was forthwith established. Jones acquired great reputation as an evangelical preacher. The following are his most important works: 1. ‘Scriptural Directory,’ 1811; ten editions. 2. ‘The Welsh Looking Glass … by a person who has travelled through that country at the close of the year 1811.’ Published anonymously, 1812, 12mo. 3. ‘Jonah's Portrait,’ 1819, eight editions. 4. ‘The Prodigal's Pilgrimage,’ 1st edit. London, 1825, 12mo; 4th edit. Thames Ditton, 1837, 8vo. 5. ‘The True Christian,’ 1833. 6. ‘The Christian Warrior wrestling with Sin, Satan, the World, and the Flesh, abridged, epitomised, and improved,’ from a work of that name by Isaac Ambrose (1604–1664) [q. v.], 1837. He was also the author of seven works in Welsh, chiefly translations of works by Baxter, Romaine, Berridge, and Sir Richard Hill. A collection of notes made from sermons preached by Jones was edited by Miss Plumptre, under the title of ‘Basket of Fragments,’ 2 vols. London and Retford, 1832–3, 12mo, and has since passed through many editions.
[Memoir of the Rev. Thomas Jones, with portrait, by the Rev. John Owen, 1851; Phillips's Jubilee Memorial of the British and Foreign Bible Society, p. 44; Williams's Enwogion Ceredigion.]
JONES, THOMAS (1775–1852), optician, was born on 24 June 1775. In 1789 he entered the establishment of Jesse Ramsden (1735–1800), optician in Piccadilly, London. Subsequently he carried on business on his own account, first at 21 Oxenden Street and afterwards in Rupert Street, and soon attained a high reputation for his skill in constructing astronomical instruments of the larger class, many of which he was commissioned to supply for the principal observatories of Great Britain and the colonies (see a list of the most important in Monthly Notices, xiii. 112). He assisted, in conjunction with Dr. George Pearson, Edward Troughton, Captain W. H. Smyth, and others, in the formation of the Astronomical Society in 1820. On 4 June 1835 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He died on 29 July 1852.
Descriptions of the following instruments invented or improved by Jones have been published: 1. ‘The Englefield Improved Side Transit Instrument,’ for obtaining time with accuracy, Tilloch's ‘Phil. Mag.’ vol. xliii., and separately London, 8vo, 1814. 2. ‘The Sectograph, principally intended for the purpose of dividing right lines into equal parts … dividing angles,’ &c., ‘Phil. Mag.’ vol. xlii., and separately London, 1814, 8vo. 3. An improved hygrometer, ‘Phil. Trans.’ 20 Feb. 1825, vol. cxvi. pt. ii. pp. 53–4. 4. A double eye-piece, ‘Monthly Notices of the Roy. Astron. Soc.’ xii. 95–6. Jones was also the author of ‘A Companion to the Mountain Barometer, consisting of Tables, &c., together with a Description and Use of the most improved Mountain Barometers,’ London, 1817, 8vo; 2nd edit. (? 1820).
W. & S. Jones was the title of another well-known firm of opticians and mathematical instrument makers in Holborn, London, in the early years of this century. The chiefs, William and Samuel Jones, were sons of John Jones, himself an optician of some note, and were at one time employed in the business of George Adams the younger [q. v.] The elder partner, William Jones (1763–1831), received some instruction from Benjamin Martin, and gave lessons in astronomy and mathematics. He was intimate with Priestley, Hutton, Maskelyne, and other well-known men of science, and was a fellow of the Astronomical Society. He published descriptions of a new portable orrery (1782), geometrical and graphical essays, giving a description of mathematical instruments (1798; 4th edit. 1813), and ‘Lectures on Electricity,’ 1800. He also edited and revised a reissue of George Adams's works on natural philosophy (1799 and 1812); wrote many scientific articles in Rees's ‘Encyclopædia’ and the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ and criticised Dr. Wollaston's invention of ‘ periscopic spectacles’ in Nicholson's ‘Jour-
