John Gale Jones

John Gale Jones (1769-1838) was originally a surgeon, but in the 1790s engaged increasingly in reform politics. He became a member of the London Corresponding Society and openly expressing his sympathy with the French Revolution. In 1797 he was convicted of seditious libel, but upon appeal he was never sentenced, continuing to move among London's more radical society in the late 1790s, when HCR first met him through the Westminster Forum. In 1806 Jones founded the British Forum, but by 1810 was once again in trouble with the authorities, eventually being sentenced to three years in Newgate for libel. He later worked closely with Henry Hunt and John Cartwright in their bids for political office. As Jones increasingly lost an audience willing to listen to his radical views, he returned to his earlier profession as surgeon and apothecary, opening a business in Somers Town (where he remained until his death in 1838) and becoming more conservative in his political views.