Sir John, a celebrated architect, often but absurdly called "the English Palladio" was born in London in 1572. His father was a respectable cloth-worker in the neighbourhood of St Paul's. Little is known of Jones' early years. According to some accounts he was apprenticed to a joiner; according to others, he received a liberal education. This much is certain, however, that while still very young he exhibited a great turn for drawing. Some of his designs fell into the hands of William, Earl of Pembroke, who was so much pleased with them that he supplied the draughtsman with the means of prosecuting his art-studies abroad for three or four years. Thus provided, Jones travelled through France, Germany, and Italy, carefully examining the best specimens of ancient and modern architecture, and taking measurements and drawings of such as struck his fancy. His progress was of course slow, as every important building, or at least every style had to be studied separately. He had left home without any training for the art-world that now began to open up before him. The Grecian orders had been forgotten in England, if indeed they had ever been known there; and the Italian orders had never been introduced, except in fragmentary details. This though a misfortune for England was an advantage to Jones. The popular Tudor style had begun to fall into disrepute from the many corruptions that had crept into it, and no other had arisen to take its place. To the fact that Jones now stepped in and supplied a long-felt want he owed the fame which he enjoyed in his own life-time, as well as in succeeding ages, and his nick-name (for it is nothing more) of "the English Palladio." In 1604, on the invitation of Christian IV., Jones migrated from Italy to Denmark, and is said to have there furnished the plans for the two royal palaces of Rosenborg and Fredericksborg. These edifices are both still extant, and if they really are due to their reputed architect, merely confirm the idea of his mediocrity. Their authenticity, however, is more than suspicious. In the following year Christian used his interest on Jones' behalf with John Paul, his brother-in-law, James I. of England; and Jones on returning to his native country was kindly received at court. Besides being appointed architect to the Queen and Prince Henry, he was entrusted with the conduct of the masques, then a favourite court amusement. From the time, thought, and money, expended on these displays, they seem to have been little inferior in splendour to those magnificent fetes afterwards given at Versailles by Louis XIV. Ben Jonson supplied the poetry; Jones the designs and decorations; skilful composers the music; while the royal family and the flowers of the young nobles danced in the interludes. The best part of Jones' time was squandered on these shows, and accordingly none of his greater works can be referred to this period of his life. In 1612 he paid a second visit to Italy, and there learned the defects of the bastard style of mingled Greek and Gothic which his half-educated taste had led him too often to adopt. On his return home he was made surveyor-general of the royal buildings, and began to draw the designs for a new palace at Whitehall. The plans of the whole work, which is undoubtedly Jones' chef d'œuvre have been published along with many other of his drawings; but the only part of the proposed palace that was ever built is the Banqueting House. While the building was still in progress, Jones was commissioned by his royal patron to examine and report upon Stonehenge. He set about this task with a zeal far beyond its importance, and came to the startling conclusion that these vast and shapeless masses of stone were the ruins of a Roman temple. Posterity has only to regret that so much time and ingenuity should have been thrown away on such a solution of the mystery. Jones' next work was the restoration of old St Paul's. He renewed the sides with very bad Gothic, and completed his blunder with a splendid Corinthian porch. Both were much admired in their day, as were also his designs for the river-front of Somerset House. Not less bepraised were the arcade and church of St Paul, Covent Garden—"two structures," says Walpole, "of which I want taste to see the beauties." In the arcade there is nothing remarkable; the pilasters are as arrant and homely stripes as any plasterer could make. The barn-roof over the portico of the church strikes my eyes with as little idea of dignity and beauty as it would do if it covered nothing but a barn." With reference to the church Quatremère de Quincy, an upholder of Jones declares that the most memorable thing about it is the repute in which it is held. Surgeons' Hall, Lindsay House, Shaftesbury House, and many others both in London and the provinces, attest at once the fertility of their designer's pencil and the unculivated taste of his employers. Scotland only boasts of two buildings in which Jones is said to have had a hand; these are, Heriot's Hospital in Edinburgh, and Glamis Castle in Forfarshire. His claims to the first are now held to be apocryphal; and such repairs as he executed on the second, add little to his credit.

When the civil war broke out Jones clung faithfully to his royal master and his party. Besides being a courtier, he was also a Roman Catholic, and therefore doubly hateful to the victorious Parliamentarians. The heavy fines which he was forced to pay failed to shake his loyalty or his faith, and he died, heart-broken and poor, July 21, 1651, in his seventy-ninth year. Many of his designs were published at intervals after his death by Kent, Colin Campbell, and Isaac Ware; and his Notes on Palladio were published in an edition of that architect's works in 1714.

Jones, John Paul, was born in 1747, at Arbigland, in the parish of Kirkbean and stewartry of Kirkcudbright. He was a natural son of Craig of Arbigland; but his reputed father was John Paul, a gardener in that gentleman's service. The agnomen of Jones was assumed by himself at the outset of what may be called his public career. At the age of twelve he went to sea, and traded for some years to America. In the course of these voyages he made himself so thorough a master of seamanship and navigation, that, according to a local account, "he was allowed to be unmatched on that coast (the west coast of Scotland) for skill in sea matters." For some time he was engaged in the slave-trade, from which, however, after a few voyages, he retired in disgust. On his way back to England the captain and mate of the vessel in which he was, both died. At the request of those on board, Jones took the command, and brought the vessel safe into port. For this service, the owners made him captain of the ship, and in a few years he realized a handsome fortune. In 1773 he settled in Virginia on a property which had fallen to him on the death of his elder brother, a planter and merchant in that state. When the war of the American Independence broke out, he offered his sword to the revolted colonies, was made captain of a small ship of war, and in six weeks had made no fewer than sixteen prizes. In 1777 he set out for France, and was appointed to the "Ranger," with which he made a descent on the north coast of England, seized the fort of Whitehaven, burnt some of the shipping, and for some weeks kept the adjoining shores of England and Scotland in constant alarm with his single ship. Two years later he set sail on a similar expedition to the east coast, reached the Firth of Forth, and very nearly executed his threat of burning every ship in the harbour of Leith. A strong wind drove him out to sea, and saved the town. Altering his tack, he turned his prow southwards, and off Flamborough Head fell in with the homeward-bound British fleet from the Baltic, convoyed by two powerful men-of-war. After a desperate and bloody battle, one of these struck its flag to Jones' own ship, which was itself so much shattered in the action, that it went to the bottom next day. This victory raised his fame to its acme; and on his arrival in Paris he was presented by Louis XVI., with a splendid sword, enhanced in value by a very flattering inscription. For a while he reigned as the lion of the day in Paris, followed the fashions, and desired to be thought a man of ton. An Englishman then resident in the French capital described him as "a smart little man of thirty-six; speaks but little French, and appears to be an extraordinary genius; a poet as well as a hero." A contemporary Scottish account describes him as a "short, thick, little fellow, about 5 feet 8 inches in height, of a dark swarthy complexion." Jones, it seems, had already wrought hard to supply the defects of a neglected education, and talks in his letters of the "midnight studies" in which he was then engaged. On his return to America, Congress voted him a splendid gold medal, and passed a resolution commending his "zeal, prudence, and intrepidity." When peace was concluded, Jones returned to France as American agent for prize-money. A few years later he entered the Russian service with the title of rear-admiral, and was in the fair way of rising still higher when the jealousies and petty intrigues of his brother officers induced him to quit it altogether. It was in vain that Catharine tried to retain him by temptations of no ordinary value. He returned once more to Paris, where the great events of the Revolution prevented him from getting a hearing for his claims. The last days of his life were spent in poverty and neglect, embittered by lingering and painful diseases. An attack of dropsy finally carried him off, July 18, 1792.

Jones, William, an eminent divine of the Church of England, was born at Lowick, in Northamptonshire, in 1726. He received his education at the Charter-House and University College, Oxford. He became in succession vicar of Bethersden, Kent, in 1764; rector of Pluckley, perpetual curate of Nayland, Suffolk, and rector of Hollingbourne, Kent, in 1798. He took up his residence at Nayland, in 1776, and remained there till his death, in 1800. He was an intimate friend of Bishop Horne, with whom he was associated in the defence of John Hutchinson's philosophical and theological tenets, and whose biography he wrote in 1795.

Although best known for his book on the Trinity, Jones employed his pen with considerable felicity on political and other subjects. Bishop Horsley eulogizes him for his "quick penetration, extensive learning, and sound piety, and for the talent he had of writing upon the deepest subjects to the plainest understandings."

His works were published, in 12 vols. 8vo, in 1801. The theological and miscellaneous works were republished in 6 vols. 8vo, in 1810. In addition, two posthumous volumes of sermons were published in 1830. The principal treatises are—The Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity proved from Scripture; A full Answer to Bishop Clayton's Essay on Spirit; Remarks on the Confessional; Zoologia Ethica; A Course of Lectures on the Figurative Language of Scripture; An Essay on the Church; An Essay on the First Principles of Natural Philosophy, and a number of political tracts written after the commencement of the French Revolution. Prefixed to the first volume is a life of the author (by William Stevens). Jones of Nayland was the originator of the British Britie.