Samuel Jones (academy tutor)

Samuel Jones (1681/2–1719) was an English Dissenter and educator, known for founding a significant Dissenting academy at Tewkesbury.

He was the son of Malachi Jones (died 1729), a dissenting preacher from Herefordshire, who left England for America ca. 1711. His education took place at the dissenting academy in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, run by Roger Griffiths, who shortly afterwards conformed to the Church of England. Jones then went to study with James Owen (died 1706) at Shrewsbury Academy. He was funded from February 1704 by a generous grant from the Congregational Fund Board (founded 1695), who later examined him as a candidate for the ministry. However, instead of taking up a position as a dissenting minister, he went to study at the University of Leiden, being there from 7 August 1706; here he encountered the teachings of Jacobus Gronovius, Jacobus Perizonius, and Hermanus Witsius. His notes on their lectures influenced his own systems of divinity and philosophy, which he used during his own teaching.

After finishing his education at Leiden, Jones moved to Gloucester, opening his dissenting academy in the Presbyterian Henry Wintle's house in Barton Street. From the outset, the Academy was popular; over its short existence, it was to educate around one hundred students, mostly for the dissenting ministries, making it the largest academy of its type in the south of England; Jones's learning in Jewish antiquities and reformed theology encouraged students from across the country to attend his lectures. But this happened in the face of state persecution. Under the 1662 Act of Uniformity, all schools and academies needed to be licensed by the local bishop, a situation which was not repealed (or even subjected to immunity from prosecution) by the Act of Toleration 1689. In September 1712, Jones was presented at the ecclesiastical court under the 1662 Act of Uniformity for keeping a school or seminary which had not been licensed. One of the most serious charges was that he infiltrated 'seditious and antimonarchical principles' into his students. In the light of comments made by his students such as Thomas Mole, it seems unlikely that Jones's establishment was through-and-through 'prejudicial to the present Establishment.' These students included future conformists of great eminence, including Joseph Butler and Thomas Secker (later Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as major dissenting theologians and controversialists, including Samuel Chandler.

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