Ann and Margaret Jones

Ann and Margaret Jones had both previously operated businesses in Bath: one had been a dealer in tea, coffee and chocolate in Abbey Yard, and the other a perfumer in Bennett Street (UBD 2.103). In 1799, the Miss Joneses were operating a boarding house at No. 3 Lower Walks. The two sisters were friends of Joseph Haskins (who had previously lived at Bath). Before settling in Bath, they resided for a time in Bristol, where Ann Jones joined the Baptist congregation at Broadmead on 1 March 1791. According to a note added some time later by John Ryland, Jr. (the pastor from 1793 to 1825), Miss Jones was eventually dismissed to John Rippon’s congregation at Carter Lane in London, where she joined on 29 December 1799 (“Lists of Members” f. 51; Horsley-down Church Book). While in London, she moved her membership to the Baptist church at Little Wild Street, but by April 1801 she had returned to Bristol, where she rejoined the congregation at Broadmead, at which time she was received, along with her sister (then living in Bristol) and Sarah Cottle, Joseph Cottle’s sister (Broadmead ff. 217-18). Flower may have had some knowledge of Ann Jones prior to Eliza’s visit to Bath, for Miss Jones was a subscriber to Flower’s edition of Habakkuk Crabb’s Sermons. He certainly knew her after her arrival in London, for the two appear together in letter 75. Ann Jones was originally from Harlow. A John Jones, a relation of Ann’s (possibly her brother) was for many years a schoolmaster in Harlow and member of the Baptist congregation at Fore Street. He died in December 1848, aged 80, and was buried in the Baptist cemetery at Foster Street, the same place the Flowers are buried. The following entry appears in the Register of Burials at Foster Street Burial Ground, Harlow, Essex, 1812-74: “M^s Anne Jones formerly of Charing Cross London and late of Bath, was buried in her family vault in this burial Ground, July 8th 1823, aged 70 years, by Thomas Finch, Dissenting Minister” (n.p.). The Flowers’s friendship with the Miss Joneses illustrates one of the more striking features of these letters-the tight-knit community of Dissenters in which the Flowers lived and moved.