JONES, Sir Willoughby (1820-1884), of Cranmer Hall, Fakenham, Norf.

Jones was born at Woolwich, the son of a senior officer of the Royal Engineers, who had served as aide-de-camp to the queen, and been created a baronet by the duke of Wellington in September 1831.1The Times, 22 Aug. 1884; Burke’s Peerage (31st edn., 1861), 630. His grandfather, John Jones (1751-1806) had been superintendant of Languard Fort, Felixstowe. Of his uncles, Sir Harry David Jones, was governor of Sandhurst and colonel commanding the Royal Engineers at the siege of Sebastopol in 1855, and George Matthew Jones was a naval officer and travel writer: R.H. Vetch, rev. R.T. Stearn, ‘Jones, Sir John Thomas’; idem., ‘Jones, Sir Harry David’; J.K. Laughton, rev. A. Lambert, ‘Jones, George Matthew’, Oxford DNB, xxx. 569-71, 508-11, 497. The family had been settled in Carmarthenshire for many generations, its Norfolk branch being established in the early eighteenth century. In April 1842 Jones was elected a scholar at Cambridge and took a wrangler’s degree (first-class honours in Mathematics) in 1843.2Burke’s Peerage (31st edn., 1861), 629; Morning Post, 9 Apr. 1842; Standard, 20 Jan. 1843. He is believed to have studied for the bar for the next two years, but his legal career was abandoned when, in November 1845, he succeeded to the baronetcy after his elder brother Lawrence (1817-45) was murdered by brigands while travelling between Macri and Smyrna.3Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1847, 2nd edn.), 192; Bury and Norwich Post, 26 Aug. 1884. For an account of the murder, see Royal Cornwall Gazette, 2 Jan. 1846.

Along with a valuable Norfolk estate Jones inherited personal wealth of £35,000. In January 1846 he rented the mansion of the duke of Argyll in Connaught Place and soon cut a figure in London society.4Morning Post, 12 Jan., 1 May 1846, 24 May, 1 June, 2 July 1847. He was presented to the queen by Lord Sondes, 24 Feb. 1847, and was proposed as a Tory candidate for West Norfolk that May.5Morning Post, 25 Feb. 1847; Morning Chronicle, 10 May 1847. He received his MA at the installation of Prince Albert as chancellor of Cambridge University in July 1847: Standard, 7 July 1847. However, his father having bought a house at Pittville, Jones was a resident of Cheltenham, and after a speech by the Liberal member for the borough (Craven Berkeley) on the health of towns bill had ‘given mortal offence to a large number of his constituents’, he was requisitioned to contest the seat at the 1847 general election in the Conservative interest.6Morning Post, 17, 22 July 1847. Lord Lincoln, the first choice of candidate, having declined: Daily News, 13 Aug. 1849. The electorate was then divided over the Great Western Railway’s proposed construction of broad gauge railway through the town, and Jones gained the support of local tradesmen by helping to defeat the scheme.7Daily News, 13 Aug. 1849. Although deemed a ‘moderate Conservative’, he was opposed to the endowment of the Catholic Church, but had to refute rumours that he was a Tractarian.8Bristol Mercury, 24 July 1847; Morning Post, 17 July 1847; Standard, 27 July 1847, quoting Cheltenham Looker-on. He was, however, generally viewed as ‘a young man of ample fortune and much ability’, his status as a bachelor being said to have made ‘the ladies’ of Cheltenham ‘highly excited’, thus leading them to canvass ‘night and day for him’.9Daily News, 13 Aug. 1849. Despite being opposed by the earl of Fitzhardinge’s influence, Jones drew many of Berkeley’s ‘old and influential supporters’, and in the poll ‘was successful beyond every anticipation’ in a three-way contest, which was reputed to have cost him ‘upwards of 4,000l.’.10Morning Post, 21, 30 July 1847; Bristol Mercury, 31 July 1847. Outstanding publicans’ bills against him were ‘said to amount to nearly as much more’, but these Jones refused to defray on the ground that he never ordered ‘this scandalous expenditure’: Daily News, 18 Aug. 1849.

Jones, who attended a protectionist meeting at Lord Stanley’s residence, 23 Nov. 1847, opposed the Catholic relief bill, and a motion for an inquiry into the effects of the dissolution of the Irish parliament, 8 Dec. and supported the second reading of the Irish coercion bill, 9 Dec. 1847.11Morning Post, 24 Nov. 1847. When his return was challenged Jones contested the petition on the ground that insufficient security had been accepted for it. In the debate on the issue, 17 Dec., he informed the House that he ‘regretted that the discussion seemed to have assumed a party complexion’, but believed that ‘by the act of the officers of the House’ he had not ‘received the protection which the law meant should be extended to him’.12Hansard, 17 Dec. 1847, vol. 95, c. 1351. A select committee inquiry into the matter under Sir Robert Peel did not uphold Jones’s challenge, but found the relevant law to be in ‘an unsatisfactory state’: PP 1847-48 (114) xi. 1; PP 1852-53 (775) xxxiv. 1 [9]. That day he opposed Lord John Russell’s motion to remove Jewish disabilities, and divided against the second reading of the relevant bill, 11 Feb. 1848. He voted against John Bright’s motion to repeal the game laws, 23 Mar., and supported the third reading of the crown and security (treason felony) bill, 18 Apr. He did not sit on any select committees or introduce any bills and was unseated on grounds of treating and bribery by his agents, 29 May 1848.13Morning Post, 27, 29, 30 May 1848; PP 1847-48 (382) (727) xi. 83, 139; Daily News, 18 Aug. 1849. The election having been declared void, he was disqualified from contesting the resulting by-election. In the following year he joined the Canterbury Association for the foundation of a settlement of that name in New Zealand.14PP 1852 (570) xxxv. 225 [512].

Jones was requisitioned to contest Cheltenham at the 1852 general election as a Derbyite, but nevertheless freely endorsed free trade. An ‘unflinching advocate of British Protestantism’, ‘good colonial government’, and ‘extended religious education’, he criticised the 1832 Reform Act for creating ‘an unequal allotment of representatives’ so that ‘whenever a large town had but one member the same candidate was nearly always returned’.15Morning Chronicle, 9 Apr. 1852; Standard, 16 Apr. 1852, quoting Bath Chronicle. Expectations of his return were high. Yet despite winning the show of hands ‘by an immense majority’, he was defeated by the sitting Liberal member by a ‘large and unexpected’ margin.16Morning Post, 24 Apr. 1852; Standard, 28 June, 2 Aug. 1852; Morning Chronicle, 9 July 1852. He was spoken of as a candidate for the seat in 1857 but did not stand.17Morning Chronicle, 14 Mar. 1857. Instead, having edited his father’s Military Autobiography in 1853, he took an active role in the volunteer movement in Norfolk during 1859-60.18‘Jones, Sir John Thomas’; Stenton, Who’s Who of British MPs, i. 215. He afterwards joined the Liberal party with which he remained identified until the close of his political career.19The Times, 22 Aug. 1884. In 1865 he stood as the second Liberal candidate at West Norfolk, where he enjoyed the backing of the earl of Leicester, (with whom he had promoted the Wells and Fakenham Railway), and stood as a firm supporter of Palmerston, ‘free trade and liberty’.20Daily News, 10 June 1865; Bristol Mercury, 17 June 1865; Bury and Norwich Post, 8 Aug. 1865. However, his refusal to support ‘sweeping alterations’ to the established church and the immediate repeal of the malt tax meant that he failed to secure a seat.21Daily News, 20 July 1865. He signified his intention of contesting West Norfolk again in 1874 but this came to nothing. His other political activity included helping to organise a public meeting at King’s Lynn in September 1876 to protest against the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria.22Ipswich Journal, 31 Jan. 1874; Bury and Norwich Post, 19 Sept. 1876.

In 1856 Jones had married his cousin Emily, a daughter of Lady Hardinge, and that year began a career of almost thirty years as a ‘much respected’ and able chairman of the Norfolk quarter sessions.23Morning Post, 16 April 1856; Burke’s Peerage (31st edn., 1861), 629; Daily News, 22 Aug. 1884. A successful livestock breeder, he was a member of the Royal Agricultural Society and devoted himself to the fulfilment of his duties as ‘an English country gentleman’. He was an active poor law guardian and trustee of the local savings bank, and involved himself with ‘almost every institution in the county of a charitable or educational character’.24Morning Post, 7 Dec. 1876; Ipswich Journal, 4 Apr. 1876; Bury and Norwich Post, 26 Aug. 1884. A shareholder in the Norfolk County school and a governor of the Free School at Scarning, Norfolk, he took a particular interest in the extension of university education, chairing a meeting at Norwich in February 1870 to call for the abolition of university tests, and joining the Women’s Education Union.25PP 1852 (521) xxviii. 757 [89]; PP 1881 (14-II) lxxii. 295; Pall Mall Gazette, 3 Feb. 1870; Essex Standard, 9 Feb. 1877. A member of the British Science and Social Science Associations, he actively promoted ‘book-hawking’ in rural districts and the establishment of public libraries.26Illustrated London News, 24 Oct. 1857; Morning Post, 25 Aug. 1868; Birmingham Daily Post, 2 Oct. 1871. See his Public Libraries. Being an address delivered at a meeting held at Downham Market, on December 5th, 1855, in aid of the public library about to be established in that town (1855). He was also an author, publishing Christianity and Common Sense in 1863.

Jones died suddenly ‘presumably from heart disease’ at his Norfolk seat in August 1884. His was succeeded in the baronetcy by his son Lawrence John (1857-1954), his personal estate being valued at £54,291.27Bury and Norwich Post, 26 Aug. 1884; Nat. Probate Calendar, Index of Wills, 1861-1941 (29 Oct. 1884).