Thomas Artemus Jones

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His Honour Sir Thomas Artemus Jones KC LLD (1871 – 15 October 1943) was a Welsh lawyer, judge, journalist, nationalist and Liberal politician who campaigned for the Welsh language.

He was born in Denbigh, the youngest of six sons of a stonemason. In 1927 he married Mildred Mary David, who was also a barrister. He left school at sixteen and worked as a journalist in North Wales, then Manchester and London, where he wrote for The Daily Telegraph and The Daily News.

Jones was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1901 and worked as a barrister on the Welsh Circuit. He became a Queen’s Counsel in 1919, a Bencher of Middle Temple in 1926, was knighted in 1931, and received an Honorary Doctor of Laws in 1938. He served as County Court Judge for North Wales from 1930 until his retirement in 1942.

In 1908 he won a libel case against the Sunday Chronicle after they published a satirical sketch about a fictional figure named Artemus Jones. He received £1,750 (about £230,000 in 2023 money). The case helped lead publishers to add a disclaimer that characters in stories are fictitious.

Jones was a Liberal who supported Welsh nationalism and the Welsh language. He worked with the Cymru Fydd movement with David Lloyd George. He stood for Parliament several times: Merthyr in 1913 (for a 1914/15 General Election that was postponed); he later opposed Lloyd George after the Liberal split. He sought the Liberal nomination in Gower after 1918 but was not selected. In 1922 he stood in Macclesfield and came second; in 1923 he contested Swansea East and failed; in 1924 he aimed to keep Keighley for the Liberals but finished third. He did not stand for Parliament again.

As a campaigner for the Welsh language, he urged the repeal of Section 17 of the 1536 Act of Union, which gave no legal status to Welsh. When he began his judgeship in 1930, he proposed using Welsh in court and ignoring Section 17 because of common law. A 1933 case highlighted how Welsh could be used in court, but the trial had to be in English due to a lack of Welsh-speaking court staff. Section 17 was repealed by the Welsh Courts Act in 1942.

Jones supported Liberal William John Gruffydd in the 1943 University of Wales by-election and called for a Secretary of State for Wales. After his death, a collection of his essays, Without my Wig, was published in 1944, including an account of the trial of Sir Roger Casement.