Owen Jones

Category : Article





On the front of the "North and South Wales Bank Building" in Eastgate Street, just by the door, is a rather odd bit of carving with the words: "Rebuilt by the charity trustees 1884". A few feet further up the wall is a round cameo in stone which refers to "Owen Jones Died 1858". Thousands pass this every day without a second glance.

We know that Number 47 was originally a Gentlemens Club and bank, constructed 1883-4 and designed by Douglas and Fordham, it was enlarged in 1908. The bank was a Welsh bank (The North & South Wales Bank, established in 1836), largely funded by the "Liverpool Welsh", hence the first storey frieze bears shields with the arms of twelve of the thirteen former shires of Wales (excluding Monmouthshire). Historically, Owen Jones of Chester (a butcher by profession) had granted by his Will (dated 1658) what he believed to be a moderate sum of money to the Corporation for the relief of the poor of the guilds of Chester in rotation. This money was obtained from a mortgage on what Owen believed to be eighty acres of poor farmland near Minera. As stated in his will, he:


 * gave and bequeathed to the poor of every Company in the city of Chester from year to year orderly as they were wont to be ranked at Midsummer Shew the tanners being first and so forward until all in their turns had enjoyed the benefit intended and then to begin again and so proceed from year to year for ever the rents and profits of his estate at Minera and a mortgage therein mentioned to be employed for the use of the poor of the said companies from year to year for ever excepting 5/s a year which he gave and bequeathed to the mayor and sheriffs of the said city for the time being for their care in seeing that part of his Will well and truly performed.



Owen Jones charitable act at the end of his life starts with a mystery at the beginning. In the late 16th century, a baby was found warmly wrapped in a blanket and tied to the bell rope in the centre of the tower of Northop church. The Vicar and Church Wardens, who were responsible for foundlings, paid from parish funds to have the baby adopted by a poor but respectable couple named Jones. Nothing is known about the early life and education of the child, named Owen Jones, but he was apprenticed to a butcher in Chester, worked hard and prospered in a community of butchers in Watergate Street, and was a regular worshipper at several churches in the city. He did not have a shop and was probably a wholesaler or supplier of meat.

The initial income was £27 a year of which £20 was distributed. However, a lead mine was discovered on the property around 1744 and the mortgage became a far more valuable instrument. Lead prospecting was promoted by Alderman Richardson of Chester. Between 1761 and 1781 the city companies had received nearly £13,000 in royalties. Difficulties in draining the mines hindered their exploitation after the 1780s and they were finally abandoned in 1824. Surplus funds had been invested, for example by 1802 the sum of £10,640 was accumulated and this sum was lent to the Corporation (at 4%) upon the security of their property in Chester. The Assembly archives contain some early documents relating to the charity (ZCL/122/(c) 1653-1781), which show relatively large sums changing hands in all sorts of transactions where the Corporation is acting as "Trustees of Owen Jones".

The Corporation's management of the charities in the 18th century was at best lax and in many respects clearly corrupt. In many cases, no separate accounts were kept for the municipal charities, but all income was merged into general funds, from which it was diverted to non-charitable purposes. St John's Hospital, by far the richest charity before Owen Jones charity had its leaden "windfall", was the most severely plundered. In addition the Corporation sold what were supposed to be permanent rent-charges in order to pay its debts, let charity property to aldermen and councilmen on long leases at low rents. From the 1740s the Corporation connived with the Guilds' misapplication of the Owen Jones charity, who by the 1780s were dividing the proceeds indiscriminately among their members, whether poor or rich, as each guild came round in rotation. Admission to the guilds was closely regulated (see: Charters), some choosing to admit new members at inflated premiums, others to exclude new guildsmen as their own turn for the "bonanza" approached.

From around 1800 onwards attempts were made to investigate these abuses, but these got nowhere (ZCL/122/(a) - 1808. Contains correspondence with the Attorney General, at the relation of Samuel Turner and Samuel Haswell, Informants, v. Robert Hodgson, Esq., Henry Bowers, Thomas Bradford and others, Defendants, before the Master of the Rolls, concerning the regulation of the same [Jones] Charity). By the late 1820s the city was receiving over £1,400 a year from charity endowments, and held a further £1,100 capital for the loan charities, but was spending little over £600 a year on charitable purposes.

With the support of several of the parish vestries, interested in keeping poor rates down, a local solicitor, John Faulkner the younger, began a further suit against the Assembly in 1829. It was overtaken by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1835, which ended corporation control of the charities, and by a Chancery order of 1837, which created the independent Chester Municipal Charities Trustees and assigned them a mortgage on corporation property which was sufficient to cover the outgoings of the charities reliant upon capital sums held by the Corporation. It still took a while for some charities to be put in order - in 1836 the St John's Hospital rents were worth £600 a year, of which only £85 was spent on the alms-people, the rest being carried to the Corporation's general account as it had been since c. 1762. It was not until c.1852 that matters seem to have been cleared up.

Sources & Links

 * A History of the County of Chester: Volume 5 part 2: The City of Chester: Culture, Buildings, Institutions;


 * Chester City Council Records;


 * Coedpoeth History;


 * The Meadow Shaft Engine House;


 * Owen Jones Educational Foundation;


 * Endowment to the Queen's School];