Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/187

 , and at Magdalen Hall (now Hertford College), Oxford. At Oxford he won the Boden scholarship for proficiency in Sanskrit in 1837, and graduated B.A. 1840, and M.A. in 1844. In 1841 he became curate of St. Andrew, Holborn, in the following year rector of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, in 1845 incumbent of St. James's, Curtain Road, Shoreditch, and in 1851 vicar of Bradford-on-Avon in Wiltshire. From 1861 to 1873 he acted as rural dean of Potterne. In 1872 he was appointed surrogate of the diocese of Salisbury and canon of Salisbury. He died suddenly at the vicarage, Bradford-on-Avon, on 28 Oct. 1885. He was twice married, and left a widow, one son, and three daughters. In 1883 he prefixed his wife's maiden name (Rich) to his surname.

Jones was an active parish priest and a scholarly archæologist. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1849. He carefully restored the Anglo-Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon. He also had a thorough knowledge of Sanskrit. He made the following valuable contributions to ecclesiological and antiquarian literature: In conjunction with Canon Dayman, Jones edited the ‘Statutes of Salisbury Cathedral’ (1882). He also edited the ‘Registers of St. Osmund’ for the Rolls series, vol. i. 1883, vol. ii. 1884. At the time of his death he had collected for the Rolls series the ancient documents relating to the diocese and city of Salisbury. He wrote many articles in the ‘Magazine of the Wiltshire Archæological Society,’ of which he was elected vice-president in 1882.
 * 1) ‘Memorials of W. Jones of the Religious Tract Society,’ 1857.
 * 2) ‘Domesday Book for Wiltshire (translated and edited with notes),’ Bath, 1865.
 * 3) ‘Diocesan Conferences,’ 1868.
 * 4) ‘Early Annals of the Episcopate in Wilts and Dorset,’ 1871.
 * 5) ‘The Life and Times of St. Aldhelm, first Bishop of Sherborne (A.D. 705–9),’ Bath, 1874.
 * 6) ‘On the Names of Places in Wiltshire’ (n.d.)
 * 7) ‘An Account of the Saxon Church of St. Laurence, Bradford-on-Avon,’ Bath, 1878.
 * 8) ‘Canon or Prebendary: a Plea for the Non-Residentiary Members of Chapters’ (a letter to the Dean of Salisbury), 1878.
 * 9) ‘Fasti Ecclesiæ Sarusberiensis: a History of the Cathedral Body at Sarum,’ 4to, Salisbury, 1879.
 * 10) ‘Annals of the Church of Salisbury, a Diocesan History,’ 16mo, S.P.C.K., 1880.

 JONES-LOYD, SAMUEL, (1796–1883). [See .]

JONSON, BENJAMIN (1573?–1637), dramatist, commonly known in his own day, and invariably since, as, was born, it is said, in Westminster, in 1572–3. He was, according to his own account, as reported by of Hawthornden [q. v.], the grandson of 'a gentleman' who had come from Carlisle, 'and he thought from Annandale to it,' and had taken service under Henry VIII. Benjamin's father, however, lost his estate under Mary, subsequently became a 'minister,' and died a month before the birth of the dramatist. Mr. J. A. Symonds has shown that Jonson's arms, 'three spindles or rhombi,' were the specific bearing of the Johnstons of Annandale. He thus inherited border blood, a fact which may account for his combative instinct. Of his mother's ancestry, nothing is known. The little recorded of her shows that she was a woman of vigorous character, with much of the proud self-consciousness which marked her son. Her second husband, whom she married while Benjamin was still a child, was a 'master-bricklayer' living in Hartshorn Lane, near Charing Cross. Jonson was, according to his own account, 'poorly brought up.' He was first sent to a school held in the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, but was soon removed to Westminster School at the expense of [q. v.], then second master, to whom he owed his future eminence in learning. The evidence is rather against his having attended either university. Fuller asserts that he was for a time a member of St. John's College, Cambridge; but he himself told Drummond that he was 'taken from school and put to a trade,' and that the degree which he possessed in each university was 'by their favour, not his studie.' The 'trade' in question, that of his stepfather, soon proved intolerable, and he escaped into Flanders, where the English troops were then prosecuting the struggle with Spain. Here he challenged and slew one of the enemy in single fight. He returned under unknown circumstances to London, probably not later than 1592, and married. He described his wife as 'a shrew, yet honest' (i.e. 'virtuous but ill-tempered'). For five years he lived apart from her, and he is said by Fuller to have been 'not very happy in his children,' none of whom survived him, while two at least, the eldest daughter Mary and son Benjamin (Epig. 22, 45), died in infancy; the former in November 1593, aged six months, and the latter of the plague in 1603, aged 