William Jones (Welsh radical)

Jones was born in 1726 to William Sion Dafydd and his second wife Catherine.[3] His father was a guard on the coach that ran between Machynlleth in Wales and Shrewsbury in England, though he also farmed at Dôl Hywel in Llangadfan in Montgomeryshire. Jones' mother, on the other hand, had been raised within the illegal and underground Catholic Church in Wales prior to the Titus Oates plot. Jones learned many works of Catholic oral poetry in the Welsh language, many of them rooted in the spirituality of the Celtic Church, from his mother and was later to write them down and preserve them for posterity. Despite his later preaching of the glory of emigration to the United States, Jones lived his whole life in Llangadfan. He was christened into the Anglican Communion at the parish church alleged to have been founded by Saint Cadfan on 18 June 1726, and the only formal education he received was at one of Griffith Jones' schools that existed for a time in the neighbourhood.[4] He was mainly a self-taught autodidact, was raised as a Welsh speaker and learnt Welsh English only as a second language. His written English was said to be very good, though he spoke the language with great difficulty. He also learnt Latin, and translated verse by Horace and Ovid into Welsh poetry.[4] As well as the classics, Jones promoted the ideas of the French Philosophe Voltaire in Welsh; in the view of David Barnes in his book The Companion Guide to Wales, this "succeeded in influencing the political development of his country".[5]

Jones was married to Ann, and they had a son and two daughters. His wife suffered terribly from pains of the body and was confined to her bed for the last 15 years of her life.[6]

Jones began to correspond with the Gwyneddigion Society, and with other contemporary men of letters, and began collecting and recording local folk songs and country dances for Edward Jones (Bardd y Brenin), the King's Bard. Jones spent much time conversing with the elderly members of his community as well as researching manuscripts and printed collections which provided Edward Jones with valuable material for his printed volumes. He describes many of the dances as having "sharp twists and turns rendering them fiendishly difficult to perform well", and stated that they were probably "too fatiguing for the bodies and minds of the present generation, and requiring much skill and activity in the performance".[7]

He also collected Welsh oral poetry and made notes on their metrical rules for Owain Myfyr.[4] Jones also began to research and collect the genealogies of the old Welsh families. His descriptions of the parishes of Llangadfan, Llanerfyl and Garth-beibio were published by Gwallter Mechain in a 1796 issue of the Cambrian Register.[4]

Through his research into Welsh history, Jones became more curious about his nation's past, and decided to rescue Welsh literature, history, and culture from the "condescension of well-meaning antiquarians and blinkered enthusiasts".[7] His views became more and more radical and more nationalistic over time; he came to dismiss early Welsh historians such as Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose writings he described as "foolish fictions". Jones was especially hostile towards those English and Scottish historians whom he believed 'through prejudice or ignorance, seldom do us justice in their records'.[7] He felt particular contempt for Lord Lyttelton, William Robertson and Tobias Smollett who he felt were hostile to the independent Welsh Princes and failed to write honestly about the suffering of the Welsh people under the English monarchs of the House of Plantagenet, the House of Lancaster, and the House of York.[7] He acknowledged his own temper and confessed that he held a grudge against the descendants of the Saxons and repeatedly refused to research the genealogy of the English nobility; because he believed them to be descended from, "bastards, thieves and robbers".[7] His Welsh nationalist feelings were appreciated by many of his countrymen, and was admiringly described by one of his contemporaries as "the hottest arsed Welshman" he had ever known.[1][10]

Jones also fought for a separate national identity for Wales, and as an antidote to the Britishness of God save the King and Rule, Britannia!, he set about composing a national anthem for Wales. The song he hoped would be sung at meetings and societies across the country. The anthem, sung to the refrain, "Ac unwn lawen ganiad ar doriad teg y dydd" (And join in joyful song at the fair break of dawn), was designed to commemorate "our viscitudes (sic) of Fortune". Jones made great play of the treachery and pillage wrought by the Romans, the "treacherous" Vortigern, "that tyrant" Edward I and "the usurper" Henry IV.[11] It is believed that this is the first attempt to produce a national anthem for Wales in Modern history.[11] As well as an anthem, Jones also advocated the creation of both a national library and the National Eisteddfod of Wales.[1]

Although Jones' nationalism was fuelled by what he saw as an English oppression, he was also acutely aware of the social and economic changes that were affecting the country, which he felt boded ill for the smaller farmer.[11] Since the 1770s, long term leases that once lasted generations, were being replaced by annual tenancies which allowed land owners to raise the rent to increasingly excessive levels from year to year.[11] As early as December 1786 he had written to his landlord, Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn rebuking him for employing land agents who were 'destitute of the principles of justice [and] moral honesty' and comparing Sir Watkin unfavourably to his father. By the 1790s Jones held a belief that the Anglicised Welsh landlords, through the employment of unscrupulous agents, had forfeited the rights to expect the unquestioning obedience of their tenants, as the traditional code of conduct under Welsh law had been violated.[11] In writings reminiscent of his hero Voltaire, he declared that society was composed of 'Shearers' and 'Feeders', 'Oppressors' and 'Slaves'.[11] As an open supporter of the American Revolution and later the French Revolution, the Whig Party-controlled British government viewed Jones as a dangerous political dissident, "a Rank republican and a Leveller". Orders were made to open and examine his mail, and government spies were ordered to keep him under watch.[1][4]

His views on a broken society, under what he described as William Pitt's 'reign of terror' led him to advocate that broken Welsh tenant farmers should leave Britain and emigrate to the United States. At the Llanrwst eisteddfod in June 1791 Jones distributed copies of an address, titled 'To all Indigenous Cambro-Britons', calling for tenant farmers and impoverished craftsmen to pack their bags, quit Wales and sail to the 'Promised Land' in the newly founded United States of America.[8] When Jones heard, in 1792, that Sir William Johnstone Pulteney, had purchased large tracts of land in New York State, he wrote to him expressing his desire to see the creation of a Welsh colony on this estate. Jones though did not endear himself to Sir William, referring to the 'insatiable avarice of the landowners', calling them 'Egyptian taskmasters'.[12] Sir William's response was very negative, he countered that the farmers of Britain lived in the most 'bounteous country in the world' and that if they improved their cultivation methods and became more industrious, then they would prosper.[12][13] Undeterred Jones then contacted Thomas Pinckney, the American ambassador in London, asking him to lend support in a plan to establish a joint-stock company to survey suitable land in Kentucky and Pennsylvania where a large number of Welsh settlers could establish a new state, whose affairs would be conducted in the Welsh language.[13] Pinckney rebuffed the idea.

Despite Jones' desires to see a Welsh colony in America, he himself never emigrated, illness and poverty preventing him from travelling.[1] Neither did his dream of a Welsh colony come to fruition, though his idea of an independent Welsh homeland in America was an important influence on Edward Bebb and Eziekel Hughes, two of the foremost Welsh emigrants who settled in Ohio in the 1790s.[14]

Jones had long been a herbalist and had succeeded in curing himself of scrofula.[4] He circulated advertisements which proclaimed his ability for healing not only scrofula but also "Fistulous and running ulcers, the Fistula Lachrymalis and other disorders of the eyes, glandulous tumours, aedematous and dropsical swellings, white swellings of the joints, rheumatick, fixt and wandering Pains".[15] He had planned to publish a book of household remedies; however, these plans, and his career as a healer, were cut short by the Medicine Duties Act of 1785, which obliged him to apply for a licence to operate as a doctor.[4][15]

In his later life Jones was a sorry figure. The lease on Dolhywel had expired, his rent had trebled, and his long-suffering daughter left home to get married.[16] The local absentee Anglican Vicar, Dr. Matthew Worthington, believing Jones to be a volatile radical, reportedly did all in his power to turn the local people against him. Jones died in 1795 at the age of 69. He was buried, at his own insistence, in unconsecrated ground in St Cadfan's parish churchyard.[16]

• Lloyd, John Edward; Jenkins, R.T. (1958). The Dictionary of Welsh Biography, Down to 1940. Cardiff: William Lewis.
• Roberts, Enid Pierce. "JONES, WILLIAM (1726 - 1795), antiquary and poet". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales and the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. Retrieved 23 June 2023.