Henry Haydn Jones
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Sir Henry Haydn Jones (1863-1950) was a Liberal politician.
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[edit] Upbringing
Haydn Jones, son of Joseph David Jones (1827-70), was brought up in Ruthin, Wales. Haydn was the son of Josepth James Jones, schoolmaster at Clwyd Bank, and respected Welsh musician and composer. Haydn Jones married Barbara, daughter of Lewis D. Jones.
[edit] Politics
In 1889 Haydn Jones was elected as a member of Merioneth Council. A year later he was the chair of the council. He cotinued to rise in the political world being elected as the member of parliament for Merioneth in 1910. He continued to serve in this role until 1945, and received a knighthood in 1935.
[edit] Business
Lewis D. Jones was a Chicago ironmonger and quarry owner. Perhaps because of this when the Abergynolwyn quarry, the village and Talyllyn railway came up for sale in 1909, Sir Haydn bought the lot himself in 1911 for £5250, and became the sole owner of what became the Abergynolwyn Slate and Slab Company. In 1935 he extended his quarry ownership buying the Aberllefenni Quarry.
The quarrying and slate business did well until the early 1920s when demand fell and the quarry was only kept open by pillaring the easy to obtain slate rather than by digging out new underground chambers. At times there was a three day week, but the Bryn Eglwys quarry soldiered on until 1941 when Sir Haydn Jones lease expired. He continued on a yearly lease until 1946 when a roof fall caused by the continued pillaring closed the quarry for good.
[edit] Talyllyn Railway
Buy buying the quarry Haydn Jones had become the owner of the Talyllyn Railway running built to serve the Bryn Eglwys Quarry at Abergynolwyn. After the quarry collapse and closure, it stripped the railway of what little reason it had to exist. Haydn Jones declared that the railway would remain open while he remained alive and it continued to run until 1950. After his death his widow reached an arrangement with L. T. C. Rolt allowing him to lease the railway which continues operating to this day.
It is in his role as owner of the Talyllyn Railway that Sir Haydn Jones became a figure known, albeit not by name, to many small children. One of the early railway preservation people who joined L.T.C. Rolt was the Rev. W.V. Awdry, and in the form of the owner of the Skarloey railway, Sir Haydn was immortalised in his books.
[edit] Papers and Legacy
Sir Henry Haydn Jones died on the 2nd July 1950. His papers are archived at the National Library of Wales, donated by his widow in 1995. Sir Henry Hadyn Jones succeeded (barely) in keeping his promise that the railway would outlive him. After the railway was revived by LT Rolt and the others it prospered and became a major Welsh tourist attraction and flagship to the infant Heritage Railway movement. The Aberllefenni slate quarries are now all closed.
