William Jones

William Jones (1762-1846) was the Liverpool publisher of Archibald McLean’s A Defence of Believer-Baptism, in Opposition to Infant Sprinkling. Originally from Denbighshire, Jones grew up in Cheshire, where he received a classical education. He was sent to Chester in 1780, working as an apprentice to a wine merchant. In the early 1780s he began worshiping with a group of Baptists that had recently begun meeting at Common-Hall Lane in Chester. In 1782-1783, however, Jones left for London, eventually working as a clerk for a Mr. Elderton (a Socinian) in Cheapside.  During his stay in London he usually attended the ministry of Abraham Booth at Little Prescot Street.  After only one year, however, he returned to Chester to work for a Mr. Thomas Crane, a member of the Baptist meeting there. In January 1786 he married Crane’s daughter. In October 1786 McLean preached for five weeks in Chester, staying with Jones and baptizing him and several others, moving the small Baptist congregation into the fold of the Scotch Baptists, which at that time could claim only one other congregation in England. In March 1793 Jones purchased a bookseller’s business, previously owned by his brother-in-law, in Castle Street, Liverpool, and began holding Sunday meetings in his home, although he may have occasionally attended Byrom Street under Samuel Medley. Sometime in 1796 or 1797, McLean came to Liverpool and, with the help of John Jones of Ramoth, helped organize a congregation of Scotch Baptists in Lord Street, with David Stewart Wylie and Jones as elders. During the next few years Jones edited two periodicals, The TheologicalRepository  (1800) and The Christian Advocate (1809). In 1812 Jones removed to London, where he joined the Scotch Baptist congregation, first at Red Cross Street and later in Windmill Street, Finsbury, serving as an elder. While in London he continued his work in the book trade, serving also as editor of the New Evangelical Magazine (1815-1824), The New Baptist Magazine (1825), The Baptist Miscellany and Particular Baptist Magazine (1827), and The Millennial Harbinger (1835). He authored several works during these years, including A History of the Waldenses (1811), A Dictionary of Religious Opinions (1815), The Biblical Cyclopoedia (1816), Christian Biography (1829), and The Works of Mr. Alexander McLean (1823). See William Jones, Autobiography of the Late William Jones, M.A. (London:  J. Snow, 1846); Dictionary of Welsh Biography; Owen, “History of the Liverpool Baptists”; Wilson, History and Antiquities, 3:325-326; R. Taylor, “English Baptist Periodicals 1790-1865,” Baptist Quarterly 27 (1977-1978), 50-82.