JONES, William I (aft. 1596- ?c. 1660), of Castellmarch, Llanengan, Caern.

William Jones is an elusive figure. His father was a successful lawyer and quondam MP for Beaumaris who had risen, by the time of his death in 1640, to become judge of the king’s bench.5DWB. The family had a house in Beaumaris, founded the town’s grammar school, and William’s mother was buried in its church.6Arch. Cambr. (1868), 116; DWB. As boys William and his brother, Charles, had been granted the reversion of the office of prothonotary and clerk of the crown in Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire for life, but they surrendered it in November 1636.7CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 325; 1636-7, p. 215. Charles, who went on to serve as MP for Beaumaris in the Short Parliament, was a noted barrister, and it has been readily supposed that William was too, but it has not been possible to confirm this, or even his admission to an inn of court.

What is certain is that Jones was recruited MP for Beaumaris in January 1647, probably with the approval of John Glynne*, a leader of the Presbyterian interest in Parliament, with whom the Jones family had enjoyed a long association.8PROB11/185, f. 223; NLW, Llanfair and Brynodol, D619. Jones took the Covenant on 24 February.9C219/43/158; CJ v. 97a. He had already been named to a committee on the delinquents’ estates sale bill on 4 February, and he went on to be nominated for two others, regarding the Newcastle-upon-Tyne election on 6 April and Members’ privileges on 10 June.10CJ v. 74a, 134a, 205a. Thereafter he seems to have left the House, possibly to return to north Wales. He was appointed to the Anglesey assessment commission on 23 June 1647.11A. and O. On 16 July he obtained leave of absence from the Commons, and he was absent on a call of the House on 9 October.12CJ v. 245b, 330b. From November 1647, when John Jones I* was elected, William Jones’s career becomes less easy to trace. He may have been the ‘Mr Jones’ appointed to the committee of grievances on 4 January 1648 and the committee for the repair of war-damaged churches six days later.13CJ v. 417a, 425a. William was re-appointed assessment commissioner for Anglesey on 16 February.14A. and O. He was excused on a call of the House on 26 September, and was probably not the ‘Mr Jones’ named to the committee to examine prisoners’ petitions on 25 November.15CJ vi. 34b, 86b. William Jones was secluded during the army's purge of the House on 6 December 1648.16A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649), 28 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5); Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 377. He also lost his place in the local administration, and he seems never again to have been a commissioner in north Wales. His elder brother Griffith, heir to Castellmarch, had been a royalist commissioner of array, but drifted with the tide and came to terms with the commonwealth. Contrary to what has been asserted by one authority, it was William Jones II*, rather than this MP, who became recorder of Shrewsbury in 1655.17W. R. Williams, Parlty Hist. Wales (Brecon, 1895), 10. William Jones I returned to the House with other secluded Members in February 1660, but was lost to view at the dissolution. He was probably the man of that name who at quarter sessions early in May 1660 pledged to stand his share of the cost of demolishing Caernarfon castle, and who was one of the north Wales petitioners to the king declaring their undying loyalty and urging justice on the regicides (7 June 1660).18Bangor Univ. Lib. Baron Hill 3191; NLW, Wynn of Gwydir 2272; Mercurius Publicus no. 24 (7-14 June 1660), 372 (E.186.3). In the light of this brief local prominence in the summer of 1660, but then complete disappearance from the records, it seems likely that William Jones died shortly thereafter. Griffith Jones was briefly under suspicion at the restoration of the king, but soon ingratiated himself with the local cavaliers.19A.H. Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales, 130, 159, 173.