JEFFREYS-JONES, THOMAS IEUAN (1909 - 1967), scholar, lecturer, and warden of Coleg Harlech

Name: Thomas Ieuan Jeffreys-jones
Date of birth: 1909
Date of death: 1967
Spouse: Nancy Jeffreys-Jones (née Watkins)
Parent: Myfanwy Jones (née Jeffreys)
Parent: David Jones
Gender: Male
Occupation: scholar, lecturer, and warden of Coleg Harlech
Area of activity: Education; Scholarship and Languages
Author: John Ellis Caerwyn Williams

Born 27 June 1909 in Rhymney, Monmouthshire, son of David Jones and Myfanwy his wife, daughter of Thomas Twynog Jeffreys (DWB, 430). He received his elementary education in Ystrad Mynach where his father was schoolmaster. Then he went to Lewis' School, Pengam, and in 1928 to the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire in Cardiff. He graduated in 1931 with first-class honours in Economics and again in 1933 with honours (upper second class) in History. At college he won the Cobden and Gladstone prizes and was awarded a research scholarship to study the agriculture of Wales in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1936 he obtained an M.A. degree for his thesis, ' The enclosure movement in South Wales during the Tudor and early Stuart periods ', part of which was published in Harlech Studies (1938). In 1935 he was appointed tutor in Coleg Harlech to lecture on political history and economics. When the college closed in 1940 because of the War he became history master in Lewis' School, Pengam, for a year, before being appointed to the staff of the Extramural Department, Aberystwyth, to take particular responsibility for classes in Carmarthenshire. In 1948 he was invited back as senior tutor to Coleg Harlech which had re-opened in 1946, and was elected warden of the college in 1960. He held a Leverhulme fellowship in 1958 and returned to his main topic of research, namely the history of agriculture in Wales. The fruits of his researches appeared in a number of articles in journals, but in the meantime he had been busy compiling two source-books for the historian, viz. Exchequer Proceedings concerning Wales in Tempore James I (1955) and Acts of Parliament concerning Wales, 1714-1901 (1959). Adult education was very dear to him and he developed the educational facilities offered by Coleg Harlech by making it possible for resident students to sit examinations for a diploma of the University of Wales in general studies, initiating a postal course for learners of Welsh, and designing a new block of buildings and securing the necessary finance for it. He was a Justice of the Peace and a member of several public bodies but the two great passions of his life were Welsh history and adult education. He died 14 January 1967. He married Nancy Watkins in 1938 and had one son.

Author

Published date: 2001

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