Thomas Artemus Jones

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

Life Jones was born in Denbigh, the youngest of six sons of stonemason Thomas Jones. In 1927 he married Mildred Mary David, who also practised as a barrister.

After leaving school at sixteen, Jones worked as a journalist, first in North Wales, before moving to Manchester, then London. Here he was on the parliamentary staff of The Daily Telegraph and The Daily News. It was after this case that publishers began the practice of adding a statement that 'all characters in this story are purely fictitious'.

Political career Jones was a Liberal and first active in the Cymru Fydd movement, along with David Lloyd George. He was selected as Liberal candidate for Merthyr against James Keir Hardie in 1913, for a General Election expected to take place in 1914/15, but postponed due to the war. After the Liberal Party split between supporters of the Coalition government led by Lloyd George and those of the opposition Liberals led by H.H. Asquith, Jones sided against Lloyd George. After 1918 he sought the Liberal nomination in the Gower constituency but was not selected due to his hostility to the Coalition Government. In 1922, with Liberals opposed to Lloyd George struggling to find Welsh constituencies willing to adopt them, he looked elsewhere and was adopted in the unpromising seat of Macclesfield, where no Liberal had stood at the previous election. Despite this, at the general election he came second, comfortably pushing the Labour candidate into third place. Following Liberal reunion in 1923, he was adopted to contest the Welsh marginal Labour seat of Swansea East, which the Liberals had lost in 1922. However, he failed to take the seat at the 1923 General Election. In 1924 he was chosen to be the Liberal candidate with the task of retaining the marginal seat of Keighley. However, a Unionist candidate intervened in the contest and Jones was edged into third place. He did not stand for parliament again. Following a UK wide petition, the section was finally repealed by the Welsh Courts Act of 1942. He was a key supporter of the Liberal William John Gruffydd in the 1943 University of Wales by-election. He was one of the first people to call for an appointment of a Secretary of State for Wales.

In 1944 his Without my Wig, a collection of essays on historical subjects, was published posthumously. It included an account of the trial of Sir Roger Casement, at which he was junior defence counsel.