JONES, Thomas II (d.1711), of Lincoln's Inn.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

2nd s. of Thomas Jones I. educ. G. Inn; L. Inn 1669. m. by 1666, Jane, da. of Thomas Wilkinson of Kirkbrigg, Yorks., 3s. 2da.1

Offices Held

KC 1683-?89; bencher, L. Inn 1683, treas. 1685, librarian 1695.2

Biography

Jones was destined to follow his father at the bar, but his education seems to have followed a peculiar course, for there is no trace either of his entry at Gray’s Inn, whence he transferred to his father’s Inn as an utter barrister, nor of his call at Lincoln’s Inn. He took silk when his father became chief justice of the common pleas in 1683, and was returned as court candidate for East Grinstead two years later. It was probably he, rather than Edward Jones, who was a moderately active committeeman in James II’s Parliament, being named to eight committees, of which the most important was to recommend expunctions from the Journals. In 1686 he took charge of the prosecution of William Williams, who jibed: ‘Mr Jones will never leave persecuting me till he has made me as beggarly as himself’.3

After the Revolution, Jones remained a high Tory, and probably a Jacobite, as alleged by the notorious informer William Fuller. He was counsel for Matthew Crone in 1690, but left the country in February 1692, and a few months later his father judged it wisest to alter his will, appointing trustees for the estate which had been devised to him. He had returned to England before Fenwick’s plot, when his chambers, which had a private entrance from Chancery Lane, were used for meetings by Father Charnock, the leader of the assassins. When Charnock was arrested, he asked for Jones as his counsel, but he was indisposed. He died on 8 Oct. 1711, and was buried in Lincoln’s Inn Chapel. His nephew Thomas was three times returned for Shrewsbury as a Whig, but none of his direct descendants in the male line sat in Parliament.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: B. M. Crook

Notes

  • 1. Le Neve’s Knights (Harl. Soc. viii), 269; L. Inn Black Bks. iii. 61, 141, 150, 191; Dugdale’s Vis. Yorks. ed. Clay, i. 85.
  • 2. Luttrell, i. 247.
  • 3. R. Morrice, Entering Bk. 2, p. 114.
  • 4. CSP Dom. 1689-90, p. 147; 1691-2, p. 145; 1696, p. 74; 1700-2, p. 482; PCC 140 Fane; Ailesbury, Mems. 356; L. Inn Black Bks. iii. 225; Luttrell, iv. 26; Lexington Pprs. 182; L. Inn Reg. 647.