# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jones, David (1663-1724?)

​JONES, DAVID (1663–1724?), preacher, son of Matthew Jones of Caervallwch in Flintshire, was admitted scholar of Westminster School in 1678, whence, at the age of eighteen, he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1681. He graduated B.A. on 27 Oct. 1685, and in the same year wrote for the university collection a Greek stanza lamenting Charles II's death. He seems to have become curate of the united parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch Haw in Lombard Street soon afterwards. He at once gained notoriety by the eccentric violence of his lectures and sermons, and in this character he is ridiculed by Tom Brown (1663–1704) [q. v.] in his ‘Novus Reformator Vapulans: or the Welch Levite tossed in a Blanket, in a Dialogue between Hic[keringill] of Colchester, David J-nes, and the Ghost of Wil. Pryn,’ London, 1691. Brown calls him a ‘young Boanerges,’ and quotes extracts from a published sermon preached by him at Christ Church, London, on 2 Nov. 1690 (London, 1690, 4to). In 1692 he delivered before his parishioners a farewell sermon (published at London, 1692, 4to), which evoked two anonymous replies, one called ‘The Lombard Street Lecturer's Farewell Sermon answered, or the Welsh Levite toss'd de novo,’ London, 1692, 4to, and the other ‘A Discourse upon Usury,’ which has been wrongly attributed to Captain David Jones (fl. 1676–1720) [q. v.] For violence Hearne compares him to Dr. Sacheverell, while Dunton describes him as ‘another [William] Bisset [q. v.] for courage and learning.’ Jones returned to Oxford in 1693, and graduated M.A. on 9 Nov. 1695. He was vicar of Great Budworth, Cheshire, from 24 Aug. 1694 to 18 Jan. 1696–7 (Welch, Alumni), and for the following years seems to have resided at Oxford.
Dr. Smalridge, afterwards bishop of Bristol, writing in December 1697, mentions that crowds went to hear Jones preach, presumably at St. Mary's, Oxford, and refers to the ‘impetuousness of his voice, the fantasticalness of his actions, and the ridiculous meanness of his images and expressions’ (Nichols, Illustrations of Literature, iii. 268). In 1700 Jones quarrelled with a man whom he had reproved for mowing hay on a Sunday. The matter came before the court of the vice-chancellor of Oxford University, and Jones's behaviour led to his committal to prison for contempt of court. He, however, obtained a habeas corpus, and the court of common pleas held that his commitment was illegal (Luttrell, Brief Relation, sub 14 May 1700). He afterwards became vicar of Marcham, Berkshire, but a presentation exhibited against him by the churchwardens at the visitation of Archdeacon Proast, on 28 April 1701, raises a strong presumption of Jones's insanity. The result of this proceeding is unknown, but in 1707 he was suspended for half a year for refusing to permit a burial, and for speaking against the liturgy (Hearne, Collections, ii. 18). He subsequently got into more serious trouble, so that his ‘coalblack hair was turned milk-white of a night’ (ib. p. 305). He was reduced to a state of abject poverty, and was detained in the Queen's Bench prison in November 1709 (ib. ii. 305, 306; cf. a quotation from the ‘Ballard Letters’ on p. 409). Luttrell reports that he died in 1708 (Brief Relation, vi. 372), but it is believed that he continued to live in obscurity till 1724.
He published at least six sermons separately besides those already mentioned; all denounced social evils with eccentric extravagance.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. iv. 666; Hearne's Collections, ii. 305, 306, 409; Dunton's Life and Errors, i. 370; Welch's Alumni Westmon. p. 192; Oxford Graduates; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
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