Thomas Jones d.ca.1655?

Thomas JONES d.ca.1655?

Biographical Note

Described by Walker as “a gentleman of a good family, and had a temporal estate of a considerable value”; doubtless a graduate, but not distinguishable in Foster or Venn among the numerous people of this name. Rector of Offwell, Devon 1632; ejected 1645, after which he spent time travelling with the royalist army, as a chaplain to Sir Ralph Hopton. He is said to have died at Rotterdam some time before the Restoration.

Books

Walker describes a series of plunderings of Jones’s house and property by parliamentarian forces. On one of these occasions “his study of books, which were of great value (for the minister of the next parish … thought no private minister in the county had a better) they brake into, several books they carried away, some they defiled, and many they tore in pieces, and scattered the leaves; many of which were seen torn, and scattered along the roads, and in the fields, for near a mile together; many of his choicest books he had hid in a chamber-privy, on the top of which a plank was nailed down; yet the soldiers found it out, and opened it; many of the books they carried away, more they brake; at length an ancient man, and an officer, coming in, and looking over the books, said, they were very good books; two he took with him, and bad a servant belonging to the house, to put up the remainder in their places again. However, afterwards they were rifled and imbezzled by the soldiers and others; so that he never had any of them again; and ‘tis supposed that many of them are still in the parishioners’ houses; and I myself have seen a great many, some quartos, some octavos, and some unbound, which I have great reason to believe were his.”

Characteristic Markings

None of Jones’s books have been identified.

Sources

• http://bookhistory.blogspot.com/2007/01/devon-book-37.html.
• Walker, J., Sufferings of the clergy, 1714, pt.2 p.280.