Jones, Frederick Edward

by Patrick M. Geoghegan

Jones, Frederick Edward (1759–1834), theatre manager, was born at Vesington, Co. Meath, into a prosperous protestant family; no other details of his background are available. Educated in Ireland and then on the Continent, he returned to Ireland c.1793 to run the Music Hall at Fishamble St. with Lord Westmeath. The theatre opened 6 March 1793 with John Gay's ‘The beggar's opera’, with the subscribers playing the roles themselves. In 1794 he received a government patent to run a theatre in Dublin that could have female, but not male, performers; entrance fees were prohibited, and the venture did not proceed. The following year Jones was granted permission to raise a fencible regiment, and held the rank of captain. In 1796 he received a patent from Earl Camden (qv) to run a theatre in Dublin and he purchased the lease for the Theatre Royal, Crow St. from Richard Daly (qv).

Putting Daly out of business had been Jones's intention from the start and, delighted, he went on to run, with some interruptions, the Theatre Royal for the next twenty-one years. He engaged in a lengthy, and expensive, series of refurbishments before reopening the theatre in January 1798 with ‘The merchant of Venice’. This was greeted with great fanfare, but Jones was obliged to close the theatre during the rebellion in the summer, and again in 1803, suffering serious financial losses both times. Disillusioned with the theatre scene in Ireland, in 1807 he readily jumped at an offer from Richard Brinsley Sheridan (qv) to become part-owner and manager of the Drury Lane Theatre. The burning of the theatre in 1809 ended his work, and he was forced to return to Crow St., which had been mismanaged in his absence. He served as a magistrate in Dublin, and was on the grand jury in 1814 that prohibited the operation of the Catholic Board. Riots in the theatre in 1814 destroyed the interior almost completely; the crowd had been angered when the advertised afterpiece was replaced without notice. Refusing to apologise, Jones again withdrew from the theatre, and went to London. He returned to manage Crow St. in 1815, but there were further riots and protests (1819), which upset him greatly. His patent was not renewed; the contract was instead granted to Henry Harris of Covent Garden, and Jones was left bankrupt; he was briefly imprisoned for debt. The final performance at Crow St. was ‘Richard the Third’ on 13 May 1820, after which the theatre closed for ever. Jones, however, continued to run a theatre at Hawkins St. for a number of years.

Although lacking in any genuine artistic talent, Jones wrote two plays that were performed in Dublin. The first, ‘The duke of Burgundy’, was a tragi-comedy, and was performed at Crow St. in 1819 only because of the dictate of the author. A second comedy, an adaptation of Tom Jones, was performed at the Hawkins St. theatre in 1826, to give Jones a benefit. Both disappeared after a few performances.

He married a woman called Susannah, and although details are sparse he appears to have had at least three sons. Two, Richard Talbot Jones and Charles Horatio Jones, were granted a patent in 1829 to run a second theatre in Dublin, and the actor Frederick Jones is believed to have been another son. Frederick Edward Jones died in Dublin in 1834. A tall, handsome man, he was nicknamed ‘Buck’ Jones because of his regal appearance.