pp xviii553 Royal octavo (234 x 156mm) 1992 hardback
ISBN 0-7083-1138-5
' . . . enjoyable and scholarly . . . ' (Parliamentary History)
' . . . an excellent study of impeccable scholarship . . . ' (English Historical Review)
' . . . detailed and readable . . . ' (Guardian)
' . . . an absorbing biography, combining a scholarship with an easy, fluid prose style . . . a comprehensive and honest account of an extraordinary life.' (Observer)
' . . . a valuable and scholarly work . . . ' (Times Literary Supplement)
' . . . [a] superlative biography . . . ' (Book News Wales)
' . . . a stylish and scholarly account of the life of one of Britain's most significant public figures.' (New Welsh Review)
As Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet 1916-1930 and confidant of four successive British Prime ministers, Thomas Jones was privy to the most important affairs of state for more than two decades: he was at Lloyd George's elbow during the First World War and acted as his agent in crucial secret discussions during the Anglo-Irish treaty negotiations in 1921; and he was centrally involved with the handling of the General Strike in 1926. His public position was unique; he became a legend in the Civil Service. This book is based on the voluminous, hitherto unexplored collection of Jones's private papers on which the historian Ted Ellis has worked for over a decade.
They also reveal another side to the man - his passionate commitment to educational and social causes. He was the chief founder of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and Arts (the forerunner of the Arts Council) and of the adult education institution Coleg Harlech. As Secretary of the Pilgrim Trust for twenty years and a leader of the Settlement Movement, his response to the Depression and mass unemployment between the wars was energetic and constructive.
But his career is also great political romance: the story of a working-class boy from the Rhymney valley who penetrated to the heart of the British establishment. An ardent Welsh patriot, he was nevertheless a leading opponent and critic of political nationalism in Wales, a country whose history in the twentieth century is scarcely intelligible without reference to his various political, social and educational activities.
Finally, Jones wrote with distinction; his published works, in particular his Whitehall Diaries are a major source for twentieth-century historians of Britain, Ireland, and Wales, as will be the case with this present volume.
Author: Retired, formerly Senior Lecturer in History at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.