His HonourSir Thomas Artemus JonesKCLLD, (1871 – 15 October 1943), was a Welsh barrister, judge, journalist, nationalist andLiberal Party politician who campaigned for the Welsh language.
Jones was born inDenbigh, the youngest of six sons of stonemason Thomas Jones. In 1927 he married Mildred Mary David, who also practised as abarrister.[1][2]
After leaving school at sixteen, Jones worked as a journalist, first inNorth Wales, before moving to Manchester, then London. Here he was on the parliamentary staff ofThe Daily Telegraph andThe Daily News.[2]
Jones died inBangor on 15 October 1943, aged 72.[2]
Jones wascalled to the Bar at theMiddle Temple in 1901, after which he practised as a barrister on the Welsh Circuit, becomingQueen's Counsel in 1919. He became aBencher of the Middle Temple in 1926, was knighted in 1931 and was made anHonorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) in 1938. Jones served asCounty Court Judge for the District of North Wales from 1930 until he retired in 1942.[1]
In 1908 he brought a successfullibel action against theSunday Chronicle that received much publicity at the time. He was awarded £1,750 (equivalent to £230,792 in 2023) after the newspaper published a satirical sketch about one Artemus Jones, a fictional Peckham church warden who had gone to France with a woman 'who was not his wife'.[3] It was after this case that publishers began the practice of adding a statement that 'all characters in this story are purely fictitious'.[4]
Jones was a Liberal and first active in theCymru Fydd movement, along withDavid Lloyd George. He was selected as Liberal candidate forMerthyr againstJames Keir Hardie in 1913, for a General Election expected to take place in 1914/15, but postponed due to the war.[5] After the Liberal Party split between supporters of the Coalition government led by Lloyd George and those of the opposition Liberals led byH.H. Asquith, Jones sided against Lloyd George. After 1918 he sought the Liberal nomination in theGower constituency but was not selected due to his hostility to the Coalition Government.[6] In 1922, with Liberals opposed to Lloyd George struggling to find Welsh constituencies willing to adopt them, he looked elsewhere and was adopted in the unpromising seat ofMacclesfield, where no Liberal had stood at the previous election. Despite this, at the general election he came second, comfortably pushing the Labour candidate into third place. Following Liberal reunion in 1923, he was adopted to contest the Welsh marginal Labour seat ofSwansea East, which the Liberals had lost in 1922. However, he failed to take the seat at the 1923 General Election. In 1924 he was chosen to be the Liberal candidate with the task of retaining the marginal seat ofKeighley. However, a Unionist candidate intervened in the contest and Jones was edged into third place. He did not stand for parliament again.[7]
Jones was a campaigner for the Welsh language. He supported the repeal of section 17 of the1536 Act of Union that gave no legal status to the Welsh language, and began his tenure as County Court Judge for North Wales in 1930 by proposing to accept Welsh in court and disregard section 17 on the basis it was overridden bycommon law.[2] He highlighted a 1933 case where the chairman, jurors, advocates, the justices, the prisoner and all the witnesses spoke Welsh, yet the trial had to be conducted in English because the court shorthand writer was an Englishman who spoke no Welsh.[8] Following a UK wide petition, the section was finally repealed by theWelsh Courts Act of 1942. He was a key supporter of the LiberalWilliam John Gruffydd in the1943 University of Wales by-election.[9] He was one of the first people to call for an appointment of aSecretary of State for Wales.
In 1944 hisWithout my Wig, a collection of essays on historical subjects, was published posthumously. It included an account of the trial of Sir Roger Casement, at which he was junior defence counsel.[1][8]
Jones stood for Parliament on three occasions:[7]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unionist | John Rumney Remer | 15,825 | 48.1 | −10.1 | |
| Liberal | Thomas Artemus Jones | 10,477 | 31.9 | New | |
| Labour | Andrew Joseph Penston | 6,584 | 20.0 | −21.8 | |
| Majority | 5,348 | 16.2 | −0.2 | ||
| Turnout | 32,886 | 86.0 | +18.9 | ||
| Unionisthold | Swing | +5.9 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | David Williams | 12,735 | 57.4 | +6.5 | |
| Liberal | Thomas Artemus Jones | 9,463 | 42.6 | −6.5 | |
| Majority | 3,272 | 14.8 | +13.0 | ||
| Turnout | 22,198 | 81.1 | −0.6 | ||
| Labourhold | Swing | +6.5 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Hastings Bertrand Lees-Smith | 14,105 | 45.0 | −4.1 | |
| Unionist | T P Perks | 8,922 | 28.4 | New | |
| Liberal | Thomas Artemus Jones | 8,339 | 26.6 | −24.3 | |
| Majority | 5,183 | 16.6 | N/A | ||
| Turnout | 31,366 | 82.8 | +5.4 | ||
| Labourgain fromLiberal | Swing | +10.1 | |||
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
