The Ricardo Album

Death of Sir T. J. Tyrwhitt Jones, Bart. (The Gentleman’s Magazine)

OBITUARY.—SIR T. J. TYRWHITT  JONES, BART.

Oct. 5. At his seat, Stanley hall, near Bridgnorth, co. Salop, aged 46, Sir Thomas John Tyrwhitt Jones, the second Baronet (1808).

He was the eldest son of the late Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt Jones, Bart. by Harriet-Rebecca, daughter of Edward Williams, of Eaton Mascott, descended from the ancient family of Mytton of Halston and Shrewsbury, who derived a very high and honourable descent from the Welch Princes and the aboriginal Kings of Britain, as well as from the Saxon Kings of Mercia and Wessex. He received a classical education at Eton, from whence he removed to Oxford, and afterwards traveled over the continental states. His father dying on 26th Nov. 1811, he succeeded to the Baronetcy and family possessions in Salop and Denbigh, and shortly afterwards renovated and embellished the ancient mansion at Stanley, formerly the property of a family of that name, and afterwards the seat of his collateral ancestors, the Huxley’s and Jones’s, the last of which, Sir Thomas Jones, received the honour of knighthood in 1762, from King George the Third, on his presenting the county address upon that monarch’s accession to the throne, and died there during the period he executed the office of Sheriff of the county of Denbigh, in April 1782, when by his will all his family manors and estates passed to the first Baronet.

Under the judicious management of a neighbouring architect, John Smalman, now of Quatford castle, the late Baronet was enabled to raise an interesting and convenient mansion at Stanley hall, in the Tudor style, replete with every comfort and refined taste to render it worthy the admiration of visitors. He was a man of keen discernment and accurate knowledge of the world; being well read in the history of his country, he highly reverenced the constitutional government of these realms, and contributed his support to many public institutions of value and importance. He was generous, kind-hearted, and charitable, to the wayward offspring of want and despair; the miserable mendicant in tatters and hunger never entreated at his door in vain... The Baronet and his amiable lady instituted a school for the education of all the poor children of the vicinity...

In 1816 he served the office of Sheriff of Shropshire; and in 1818 he obtained the seat in the Senate for the borough of Bridgnorth, which had been vacated by the present Earl of Liverpool. In 1820 he retired from his senatorial duties, but continued his kind patronage to the tradesmen of that borough til his death, being considered its greatest benefactor. He was anxious after the sports of the field, having several valuable preserves in this county. It was on one of these field days in 1827, that he and his bosom friend and companion having left home in the morning, he received that injury in his eye which rendered the remainder of his life a scene of trouble, anguish, and misery. It occurred through an accidental shot from the piece of his companion glancing against an ash-tree, and bounding from thence into the ill-fated Baronet’s left eye; it at length worked itself into the vicinity of the brain, and having perforated the organ, was the cause of the aberrations of mind of its much to be deplored and unhappy sufferer, until his frame and constitution gave way to the disease, and he expired in the bloom of life and manly grace.

He was lineally descended on the female side from the ancient patrician stock of Jones of Chilton Grove in the parish of Atcham, and of Shrewsbury. Of that family was the regicide Colonel John Jones, brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell, and also his Secretary, whose residence was at Tonmon castle, co. Glamorgan, who forfeited his life and atoned for his crime under the most bloody, horrid, and ignominious sentence it was in the power of the human mind to invent; all which he suffered with the heroism and courage of the most undaunted character. His descendant, Robert Jones, esq. is the present lord and proprietor.

The subject of this memoir married, in June 1820, Elizabeth Walwyn, youngest daughter of John Macnamara, merchant, of the Island of St. Christopher’s in the West Indies, a truly amiable and charitable lady, who greatly contributed to meet the excellent views and comforts of her much to be deplored consort, by whom she has now living four sons and three daughters. Sir Henry Tyrwhitt, the eldest son, is now become the third Baronet, being in his 16th year. The remains of the deceased were interred within the vault of his ancestors, the Joneses, at St. Alkmund’s Church, Shrewsbury, on the 11th Oct. 1839.