Leslie Jones

Colonel Leslie Grove Jones (1779-1839) was an English soldier and Radical political writer.

He rose to attention after a series of "powerfully written and very violent" letters to The Times from 1829 to 1832 under the pseudonym "Radical", especially concerning the passage of the Reform Bill.

In 1796 he joined the Army, having been offered an officer's commission in the Grenadier Guards by the Marquess of Lansdowne. He served throughout the Peninsular War and was promoted to his highest rank, that of lieutenant colonel, in 1813. While stationed at Cambrai in 1817 he wrote the pamphlet An Examination of the Principles of Legitimacy, eventually published in 1827.

Jones was a friend of Jeremy Bentham, who nominated him for a seat on the governing Council of London University (later to become University College London) in 1829. Jones is mentioned as serving as a "proprietor" (similar to a trustee) of the University in 1831. His second marriage was in 1838, to the wealthy widow Anna-Maria Dashwood (née Shipley), a neighbour of Jones' in North Wales. The second Mrs Jones was a daughter of William Davies Shipley and a friend of Walter Savage Landor; Jones' marriage to her possibly broke off a previous relationship between her and Leigh Hunt. a request that was then both unusual and, given that the Anatomy Act would not be passed until 1832, illegal. This did not happen, and he is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery. His pamphlet An Examination of the Principles of Legitimacy was published in 1827. In late 1829 Jones began writing regularly to the Times under the pseudonym "Radical". It is not clear when it became generally known that he was the author, but the Times itself identifies the two in 1831 and his obituary treats it as common knowledge.

Jones features in a number of 1830s satirical depictions of Radical politicians. An 1835 print titled "A Prospective View of the House of Commons", caricaturing a hypothetical Radical government, shows Jones alongside William Cobbett, Henry Hunt, Daniel O'Connell, John Gully, Joseph Hume, John Gale Jones, and Richard Carlile among others.