sculptor, professional photographer, architect, inventor and lecturer, was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, eldest son of William Jones, the parish clerk. One brother, Watkin D. Jones, was also a sculptor; the other, J. Emrys Jones, a designer. William and Watkin left Merthyr for London, following the example of their fellow townsman and friend, the sculptor Joseph Edwards with whom Jones was said to have found employment in London. This was not the case, although the two remained in close contact until they fell out over an artistic matter. Jones exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1843 and 1855. His statue of the ancient bard Taliesin, The Prince of the Bards , was exhibited at the Abergavenny Eisteddfod in 1845 and reproduced in the Illustrated London News . Also an inventor, his productions included printing blocks 'of a superior character’ and military weapons, the latter being said to have aroused some government interest 'and then, as too often the case, forgotten’. He also spent time and money on a scheme for harnessing magnetism as a motive power.
Migrating to Melbourne in 1854, Jones married Catherine Dunphy in 1855. He exhibited portrait sculpture at various Melbourne exhibitions and had his portrait painted by Andrew MacCormac . At the 1856 Victorian Exhibition of Art he showed busts of John Pascoe Fawkner, George Coppin and Mr R. Younge, giving his address as 110 Lonsdale Street East. The following year he was represented in the first exhibition of the Victorian Society of Fine Arts (when living in Hodgson Street, Collingwood), with busts of Mr Clough and Mr and Mrs Charles Young and a portrait medallion of Fawkner. He then moved to Sydney, where he executed an allegorical figure of Flora for the garden of Clarens, the residence of Sir James Martin, and modelled a number of portrait medallions, among them a bronze cast of a young man in profile said to be Daniel Deniehy (1859, Mitchell Library). In July 1859 Jones was proclaiming himself 'inventor of the Australian style of architecture’ and offering patrons 'artistic architecture, combining elegance, utility, stability and economy’. The advertisement received a poor response and Jones was forced to abandon both sculpture and architecture later that year. He then set up as a travelling photographer. By 1863 he was at the Harp of Erin Hotel in Maryborough, North Queensland. After a year in Queensland he returned to his family in New South Wales.
In 1870 Jones attempted to resume his sculptural career and showed eight sculptures (executed 1857-59) at that year’s Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition. He offered his services to the Sydney Mechanics School of Arts as a teacher of modelling for a salary of 50 guineas a year but the offer was refused. In January 1871 Jones, a member of the Unitarian Church and the Sydney Secular Society, was arrested for blasphemy, allegedly having denounced the Old Testament. He was sentenced to two years’ gaol and fined £100, but the Governor of NSW soon ordered his release from prison and the fine was remitted. Afterwards Jones appears to have reverted to working as a travelling photographer and public lecturer in rural New South Wales. In March 1875 a letter written in doggerel verse by his wife at Parramatta appeared in the Stockwhip . It detailed the hazards of her husband’s career:
The New South Wales martyr has to roam far far from his dear family and home,
From day to day and week to week, a living for them joyfully does seek,
Photography and dissolving views are his daily occupation.
He lectures on astronomy and the wonders of creation.
He meets with many bigots and many bitter foes,
Who try their best to starve him, and ruin him as he goes.
He also meets with kindness, from those whose minds are strong;
From men of sense and learning, who know he suffered wrong.
Jones received only one known sculptural commission in the 1870s – the monument over the grave at Rookwood Cemetery of his former friend, the Unitarian minister James Pillars, which he carved in 1875. In about 1888 Henry Parkes ordered a replica of the Flora statue for the Sydney Botanic Gardens from him and Jones responded with a bitter letter describing the hardships he and his family had faced, stating that he had been 'a long, long time out of employment’. In 1887-88 he was listed in Sands Sydney Directory as a sculptor of Granville, near Parramatta, but the spectre of his blasphemy conviction continued to haunt him. Rev. W.A. Phillips, incumbent of St Mark’s Church of England at Granville, was deeply offended when Jones was employed as an architectural carver on the church in 1885-86: 'Seeking out the contractor, he fumed and poured out the figurative vials of his wrath upon him for allowing an unbeliever to take part in building an house purposed for Divine Worship’.
On 22 May 1893, Jones died at the home of his only child, a married daughter then living in Margaret Street, Petersham. He was buried in the Independent section of Rookwood Cemetery. Soon forgotten colonially, he enjoyed a glorified posthumous reputation in his native town, it being stated in a 1908 history of Merthyr Tydfil that he had been presented with a gold medal in Melbourne and that his studio had been 'one of the fashionable resorts of the city’:
He appears to have realised considerable wealth at Melbourne, but being of a roving disposition he did not remain there long. Bidding his friends adieu, he started coastwise in his gig for Sydney, and, from that time, disappeared. Many years have passed since then, but no tidings of his fate have ever reached this country.
- Writers:
- Lennon, Jane
Note:
- Date written:
- 1992
- Last updated:
- 2011
