Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/106

 bread and water for three days. O'Connor brought this treatment of a political convict before the House of Commons (, Parl. Debates, 18 June 1849), and was allowed to purchase his exemption from oakum-picking by a small weekly payment. On his release from gaol Jones became the principal leader of the disunited remnants of the chartist party, and used his influence strongly against O'Connor, whom he described under the name of ‘Simon de Brassier’ in his ‘History of a Democratic Movement,’ published in ‘Notes to the People.’ He lectured up and down the country, advocated a communistic plan of dealing with property in the chartist convention of 1851, again contested Halifax in 1852, obtaining fifty-one votes, and became editor of the chartist paper, ‘The People's Paper,’ at the same time. But chartism was practically extinct. By 1854 he was almost its only lecturer; he was at feud with several other chartist leaders, and henceforth passed into the ranks of the advanced radical party, advocating a land-reform scheme of his own of an indefinite nationalising character. In 1853 and 1857 he contested Nottingham. He devoted himself to law and letters, joined the northern circuit, and obtained some criminal practice. Between 1853 and 1855 he published a fiercely sensational novel, called ‘The Lass and the Lady;’ and a number of tales entitled respectively ‘Lord Lindsay,’ ‘The Maid of Warsaw,’ ‘Woman's Wrongs,’ ‘My Life,’ ‘Beldagan Church,’ and ‘The Painter of Florence.’ In 1855 appeared ‘The Battle Day and other Poems,’ of which Landor wrote to him: ‘It is noble; Byron would have envied, Scott would have applauded.’ His political songs, of which the best are ‘The Song of the Poor,’ ‘The Song of the Day-labourers,’ ‘The Song of the Factory-slave,’ and ‘The Song of the Poorer Classes,’ displayed considerable lyrical power, and were highly successful. In 1856 he wrote ‘The Emperor's Vigil,’ and published ‘Evenings with the People,’ a series of political addresses. In 1857 he published ‘The Revolt of Hindostan,’ said to have been written in prison with his own blood on the loose leaves of a torn prayer-book in 1848 and 1849, and privately printed in 1850; in 1859 he wrote ‘Corayda and other Poems.’ In 1867 he published a lecture on labour and capital, which he had delivered in several towns during that year. He was on the point of contesting Manchester, where he resided, as the radical candidate, and had almost a certainty of success, when he died suddenly at Higher Broughton, Manchester, on 26 Jan. 1869, and was buried with an imposing public funeral at Ardwick cemetery on 30 Jan. He left little or no property, and a public fund was raised for the benefit of his children. He was generally regarded, even by strong political opponents (e.g. Times, 27 March 1869), as a thoroughly disinterested, if mistaken, politician, and personally he was attractive and winning. It was currently said and generally believed that he had sacrificed his property to the chartist cause, and had refused a relation's offer of a large fortune on account of the condition attached to it, that he should renounce his political views. But his former chartist colleagues freely denied both his disinterestedness and his sincerity. As a poet he had much lyrical ability; his prose writings are of small value. 

JONES, EVAN (1820–1852), better known as, Welsh poet, journalist, and independent minister, son of Evan and Catherine Jones, was born at Bryntynoriad, near Dolgelly, on 5 Sept. 1820. He began life as an elementary school teacher, and while engaged at Llanwddyn commenced preaching at the independent chapel in March 1838. In October 1839 he went to a grammar school at Marton, and subsequently to another at Minsterley in Shropshire, to prepare for the ministry, and during the latter part of his stay at Marton had charge of the church both there and at Forden. In September 1841 he entered Brecon College, and was ordained minister of a church at Tredegar in July 1845.

From his younger days Jones contributed many articles, mainly on temperance and disestablishment, to Welsh and English journals. In 1846 a commission, formed almost wholly of churchmen who were unacquainted with the Welsh language, was appointed to inquire into the state of Welsh education. Their report, published in 1847, violently misrepresented the work of nonconformists, and charged them with ignorance, drunkenness, and immorality. Similar charges had already been made in anonymous letters which appeared in ‘John Bull’ early in 1847, from the pen of John Griffith, afterwards rector of Merthyr. Jones wrote a spirited reply to Griffith in four letters, and addressed two able letters to Lord John Russell, in which he brought statistics to refute the charges of 