John Viriamu Jones

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John Viriamu Jones, FRS (1856–1901), was a Welsh scientist who helped measure the ohm and an education leader who helped found the University of Sheffield and Cardiff University.

Born on 2 January 1856 in Swansea, he was the third of six children of Thomas Jones, a clergyman, and Jane Jones. His name, Viriamu, comes from the Erromangan word for Williams. The family moved to London in 1858, where he attended a private school in Reading and then University College School. After his mother’s death in 1858, he later returned to Swansea and studied at the Normal College before entering University College London, where he earned his first degree at 19. In 1874 he won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, where he achieved first‑class honours in mathematics and physics.

In 1881, at age 25, Jones became principal of Firth College in Sheffield (the institution that would become the University of Sheffield). In 1883 he became the first principal of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire (now Cardiff University) and headed its Physics Department, while also leading the Cardiff Technical School (the forerunner of UWIST). In 1895 he was named the first vice‑chancellor of the University of Wales and worked to raise the standard of secondary education in Wales. He was an ex officio Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, in 1897–98.

Jones continued his scientific research and, in 1894, was elected Fellow of the Royal Society for his work on measuring the ohm. He died suddenly in Geneva on 1 June 1901, aged 45; his body was returned to Swansea and buried near his father at St Thomas’s Cemetery.