JONES, William (1566-1640), of Castellmarch, Llanengan, Caern.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. 1566, 1st s. of William ap Gruffyd ap John of Castellmarch by his 1st w. Margaret, da. of Humphrey Wynn ap Meredydd of Cesail Gyfarch. educ. St. Edmund Hall, Oxf. c.1590; Furnival’s Inn c.1585; L. Inn 1587, called 1595. m. (1) 1587, Margaret (d.1609), e. da. of Griffith ap John Griffith of Cefnamlwch, 5s. 6da.; (2) Catherine, da. of Thomas Powys of Abingdon, Berks., wid. of Dr. Hovenden of All Souls. suc. fa. 1587. Kntd. 1617.

Offices Held

Recorder, Beaumaris from c.1593; j.p.q. Caern, by 1601; bencher, L. Inn 1609, Lent reader 1616; serjeant-at-law 1617; c.j. King’s bench in Ireland 1617-20; judge of common pleas 1621, of King’s bench 1624; commr. to inquire into the state of Ireland 20 Mar. 1622-Nov. 1623, and 1624; member, council in the marches of Wales 1623.1

Biography

Jones’s grandfather Griffith ap John (or Johns) was constable of Conway castle and a servant of the Earl of Warwick. His father married well, and gave his son the type of education conventional among the English gentry of the day. Jones was thrice returned for Beaumaris, of whose corporation both he and his brother Humphrey were prominent members. The Beaumaris burgesses were appointed to the Newport bridge committee on 29 Nov. 1597. His election for Caernarvonshire in 1601 may be attributed to the influence of the Wynns of Gwydir, whom he served in a professional capacity till his elevation to the bench. Jones’s active parliamentary and legal careers had hardly begun by the close of Elizabeth’s reign, though some of the committees conjecturally attributed to Thomas Jones in the 1601 Parliament may be his. As knight of the shire he may have attended the order of business committee (3 Nov.) and the monopolies committee (23 Nov.). Though he was an outspoken Member of the Addled Parliament, this appears not to have checked his promotion. He died at Holborn 9 Dec. 1640 and was buried in Lincoln’s Inn chapel, as he had requested in the will he made a week before his death. He had already disposed of most of his personal estate. His wife was to have ‘all her jewels and wearing apparel called and termed her paraphernalia’.2

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: A.H.D.

Notes

  • 1. DWB; Arch. Camb. supp. 1917, pp. 280, 305; Griffith, Peds. 191; G. Roberts, ‘Parl. Hist. Beaumaris’, Trans. Anglesey Antiq. Soc. 1933, p. 101; Foss, Judges, vi. 338; W. R. Williams, Parl. Hist. Wales, 9.
  • 2. Arch. Camb. (ser. 4), xii. 82-3; D’Ewes, 565, 624, 649; Roberts, 106; Griffith, loc. cit.; Cal. Wynn Pprs. passim; E. G. Jones, ‘County Politics and Electioneering’, Trans. Caern. Hist. Soc. 1939. i. 40; PCC 28 Evelyn.