John Jones of Gellilyfdy

John Jones of Gellilyfdy (c. 1578 - c.1658) was a Welsh lawyer, antiquary, calligrapher, manuscript collector and scribe. He is particularly significant for his copying of many historic Welsh language manuscripts which would otherwise have been lost.

Jones often styled himself as Siôn ap Wiliam ap Siôn, using the Welsh patronymic system, in his manuscripts.

Like many antiquaries of the period, Jones came from a family of the minor rural gentry; he was the eldest of six sons of William Jones, whose lands were at Gellilyfdy, Ysgeifiog, Flintshire (Gellilyfdy farm still stands near the small village of Babell). He was educated in law, probably at Shrewsbury School (lodging in the present-day Plough Inn on Cornmarket), and by 1609 was engaged in the Court of the Marches at Ludlow as an attorney. By this time he had already begun to make copies of manuscripts that he located in the houses of the Welsh gentry: however, by 1611 he was in a debtor's prison in London. Jones was to spend much of his life in prison from this point, although he used his time while incarcerated to carry out much of his transcription work and did relatively little copying while at liberty.

In 1612 Jones was at Cardiff transcribing the Book of Llandaff, but by 1617 was in the Fleet Prison: he was also imprisoned at Chester and Ludlow at various times. Although he inherited the residue of his father's estate in 1622, this was to lead to a series of lawsuits in Chancery, and the remainder of his life was blighted by legal actions (either as defendant or plaintiff), debt and periodic imprisonment. During the Civil War period Jones was also imprisoned for refusing to pay taxes, complained about the privations visited on Wales by the King and Parliament, and spent a great deal of time petitioning various political figures such as Endymion Porter. Perhaps unsurprisingly given his experiences, Jones was eventually to disown the legal profession, writing from prison on such subjects as "The Judgments of good Kings on unjust Judges". Jones was recorded as being at Gellilyfdy in 1654, but was back in the Fleet by November.

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