Josiah Towyn Jones

Who was Josiah Towyn Jones?

Josiah Towyn Jones was a Welsh clergyman and Liberal Party politician. He was Member of Parliament for Carmarthenshire East and later for Llanelli.

He was born in New Quay, Cardiganshire, and began work as a farm labourer aged 11. A year later he went to sea as a cabin boy, later working as a ship's cook and steward.

In 1876 he entered the Presbyterian College, Carmarthen. In 1880 he became a Congregationalist minister at Dowlais near Merthyr Tydfil. In 1884 he began a 22-year spell as minister at Cwmamman in the Amman Valley, Carmarthenshire. At this time he was a close political associate of leading Welsh Liberals Tom Ellis and David Lloyd George.

He married Mary Howells of Plas Cadwgan in the Swansea Valley in 1885 and they had two daughters.

For twenty years he acted as agent for Abel Thomas, Liberal MP for Carmarthenshire East. When Thomas died in 1912, Towyn Jones replaced him at the ensuing by-election. Under the Representation of the People Act 1918 the East Carmarthenshire seat was abolished, and he was instead elected as MP for the new seat of Llanelli at the general election of that year, retiring at the 1922 election.