Henry Jones (bishop)

Henry Jones (c.1605 – 5 January 1681) was the Anglican Bishop of Clogher and Bishop of Meath.[1]

He was born in Wales, eldest of the five sons of Lewis Jones, Bishop of Killaloe. His brothers included Michael Jones, Governor of Dublin and Ambrose Jones, Bishop of Kildare. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating B.A. in 1621 and M.A. in 1624.

In 1625 he succeeded his father as dean of Ardagh[2] until he was appointed Dean of Kilmore in 1637.[3] In 1638 he was also collated Archdeacon of Kilmore.

During the Irish Rebellion of 1641 he was forced to surrender his castle at Belananagh, County Cavan to the O'Reillys. Whilst in captivity he offered to go to Dublin to present a petition of behalf of the rebels, where he was able to report on their plans. In December 1641 he was able to escape with his family to Dublin. He then did much to mitigate the sufferings of the Protestants during the war, including making a trip to London to collect money for their relief. He served as the head of a "Commission for the Dispoiled Subject" which documented losses of Loyalists at the hands of the Irish rebels; Jones presented a report to the British House of Commons in March 1642, and in 1652 published An Abstract of some few of those barbarous, cruell massacres and murthers of the Protestants and English in some parts of Ireland, drawn from the commission's depositions.[4]

On 27 October 1645 he was raised to the episcopy as the bishop of Clogher on the recommendation of the Marquis of Ormonde and was consecrated in Christ Church, Dublin, on 9 November. He was allowed to retain the archdeaconry of Killaloe and other preferments in commendam. In the following year he was appointed vice-chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin, to which he presented the 'Book of Durrow' and the Book of Kells,[5] and in 1651 the exotically designed oak staircases which led to the gallery of the new library.[6] In 1657 he was appointed the principal trustee of an educational trust established by Erasmus Smith.[7] On 25 May 1661 he was translated to the bishopric of Meath. The sermon he gave at the consecration of his brother Ambrose as Bishop of Kildare in June 1667 was published.

He was an ardent Protestant and was involved in the 1670s in the downfall of Oliver Plunkett, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh.

He died in Dublin in 1681/2 and was buried the following day in St. Andrew's Church. He had married a niece of Archbishop James Ussher, and had several children, some of whom became Roman Catholics.

References
  1. "Bishop Henry Jones". Library Ireland. Retrieved 24 January 2013.
  2. "Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae: The succession of the prelates Volume 3" Cotton,H. p186 Dublin, Hodges & Smith, 1848–1878
  3. Clogher clergy and parishes : being an account of the clergy of the Church of Ireland in the Diocese of Clogher, from the earliest period, with historical notices of the several parishes, churches, etc" Leslie, J.B. p 11: Enniskille; R. H. Ritchie; 1929
  4. Trinity College Dublin 1641 Depositions Timeline
  5. Book of Kells information page
  6. "The Library", Rev. T. K. Abbott, in The Book of Trinity College, Dublin, 1591-1891, Belfast: Marcus Ward & Co., 1892, p. 160
  7. Quane, Michael (1964). "Galway Grammar School". Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society. 31 (1/2): 39–70. JSTOR 25535416.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1885). "Jones, Henry (1605-1682)". Dictionary of National Biography. 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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