We are glad to avail ourselves of this opportunity of acknowledging the kindness of several friends for much valuable advice and assistance given.
I feel I owe a word of apology to the readers of this brief and inadequate memoir of a dead friend. At the request of Jones’ most intimate friends I have compiled it in the scanty leisure moments of a few weeks of a busy life, too few to do justice to my theme. I wish to return my heartiest thanks to those of his friends who have so quickly and generously aided me with the materials at their disposal, especially to Mr. F. W. Hill, Dr. W. E. Sumpner, the brothers Abraham, of Keswick; Mr. W. J. Williams, Mr. Harold Spender, and M. Spahr, of Evolena. I hope if any inaccuracies are detected by these or other friends, they will communicate with me. It has been difficult to avoid them, for all the written documents do not agree in facts and dates. I trust, however, that this brief record of great effort, great achievement, and great tragedy will be more acceptable than no record at all.
_National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, London, S. W. Feb. 26th, 1900._
Region separate, sacred, of mere, and of ghyll, and of mountain, Garrulous, petulant beck, sinister laughterless tarn; Haunt of the vagabond feet of my fancy for ever reverting, Haunt and home of my heart, Cumbrian valleys and fells; Yours of old was the beauty that rounded my hours with a nimbus, Touched my youth with bloom, tender and magical light; You were my earliest passion, and when shall my fealty falter? Ah, when Helvellyn is low! Ah, when Winander is dry!
Owen Glynne Jones was born on November 2nd, 1867. A Welshman by blood, he was a Londoner by birth, for he first saw the light of day in Clarendon Street, Paddington. His father, Mr. David Jones, was a carpenter and builder, and the son commenced his education at a local school. Of his early life there is little to tell. He seems to have spent his holidays in Wales, and there to have developed, among what may without inaccuracy be called his native mountains, that passion for climbing which made him famous, and which led to his early and much lamented death.
In 1881, when not yet fourteen years of age, Owen Jones was sent to the Central Foundation School in Cowper Street, City Road, of which Dr. Wormell was head master. Those who knew him there speak of him as ‘a bright, promising schoolboy.’