Education
At the age of fourteen Jones was apprenticed to a draper in Caernarfon and afterwards moved to Pwllheli, then to Bangor and eventually, when he was nineteen, to London.
At the age of fourteen Jones was apprenticed to a draper in Caernarfon and afterwards moved to Pwllheli, then to Bangor and eventually, when he was nineteen, to London.
His main business was the London West End department store Dickins & Jones. Foreign most of his life, his name was John Jones. In 1917, a few years after being created a baronet, and a few months before his death, he changed his surname by deed poll to Prichard-Jones.
Born to a Welsh-speaking family at Tyn-Coed, a small farm near Newborough, Anglesey.
In 1872 he entered the firm of Dickins, Smith & Stevens in Regent Street. There he was successively promoted to buyer, manager, director, chairman of the board and finally to partner, when the name of the store was changed to Dickins & Jones.
He was also involved in the management of other businesses and was prominent in movements for the promotion of workers" welfare, as well as supporting profit-sharing schemes for his employees. The University of Wales awarded him an honorary doctorate.
Jones maintained lifelong links with his native county, where he had a home, Bron Menai, Dwyran.
He was made High Sheriff of Anglesey for 1905, and in 1910 a Deputy Lieutenant of Anglesey and a Baronet, for his services to education and the community. As well as his house in Wales, Jones had a country house at Elstree, in Hertfordshire called Maes yr Hâv. He died at his London home in 1917, the result of an accident.
, opened in 1905at Newborough, Anglesey, may be described as a community centre for the people of Newborough.
lieutenant consisted of a library, facilities for exhibitions, meetings and lectures. Also on the site were cottages which were made available to local elderly people, subject to certain criteria, who would also be paid a pension from a fund established by Sir John Prichard-Jones.
The fund was financed through monies gained from a property in London, but unfortunately the property was destroyed through bombing during World World War World War II Without this fund the building has fallen into disrepair and requires renovation. In 2006 the Pritchard Jones Institute was one of the buildings nominated for the British Broadcasting Corporation television show Restoration.
He was Treasurer of the Welsh National Museum and a member of the Council of the North Wales University College at Bangor, of which he was a generous benefactor, becoming Vice-President of the College Council in 1909.