Sir George Roderick Jones (21 October 1877 – 23 January 1962) was a British journalist and news agency manager, who for most of his career worked for

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

. From 1916, he was a significant shareholder in the company.

Life

Jones was born in

Dukinfield Dukinfield is a town in Tameside, Greater Manchester, England, on the south bank of the River Tame opposite Ashton-under-Lyne, east of Manchester. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 19,306. Within the boundaries of the historic c ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county tow ...

, the only son of Roderick Patrick Jones, a

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

hat salesman, by his marriage to Christina Drennan Gibb.

Donald Read Donald Read (31 July 1930 – 1 October 2018) was a British historian. He was emeritus Professor of Modern English History at the University of Kent and in 1988 was appointed to write the authorised history of Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news ...

Jones, Sir (George) Roderick (1877–1962), news agency director
in

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

(Oxford University Press, 2004) online, accessed 15 April 2020 His parents had been married at St Saviour's church, Manchester, on 13 September 1877, the month before his birth. His father was then a salesman, and his grandfather, John Jones, a butcher. In 1894, Jones took up an invitation to join an aunt in

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foothi ...

, then in the

South African Republic The South African Republic ( nl, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, abbreviated ZAR; af, Suid-Afrikaanse Republiek), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer Republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when i ...

. In 1895, he took a job as sub-editor on the ''Pretoria Press'' and later that year became an assistant to the Reuters correspondent in the Republic. In 1896, Jones's interview with Leander Starr Jameson in the aftermath of the

Jameson Raid The Jameson Raid (29 December 1895 – 2 January 1896) was a botched raid against the South African Republic (commonly known as the Transvaal) carried out by British colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson, under the employment of Cecil ...

was networked internationally. In 1905, he became general manager of the Reuters office for British South Africa.Michael B. Palmer, ''International News Agencies: A History'', p. 75 In April 1915, during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, the Reuters general manager in London, Baron Herbert de Reuter, killed himself a few days after his wife had died, and with the company in financial difficulties. In October 1915, Jones was appointed as general manager. In 1916, he and the company chairman, Mark Napier, who was himself a financier, bought the company, with money being advanced to Jones by Sir Starr Jameson, chairman of the

British South Africa Company The British South Africa Company (BSAC or BSACo) was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expect ...

. During the rest of the War, Reuters followed a carefully patriotic line, so much so that Jones was accused of being the British government's Head of Propaganda. He was knighted in the

1918 New Year Honours The 1918 New Year Honours were appointments by King George V to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of the British Empire. The appointments were published in ''The London Gazette'' and ''The Times'' in Ja ...

, in recognition of his services to journalism. In 1923, Reuters became the first news agency to use radio for sending news to its subscribers.Katie Allen
“Reuters: a brief history“
in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'', 19 February 2017, accessed 20 April 2020 Jones became chairman of Reuters as well as general manager and retired from those posts in 1941. The company was restructured, so that its ownership was transferred to the newspapers subscribing to it. In 1951,

Hodder & Stoughton Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint of Hachette. History Early history The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs Jackson and Walford, the official publishe ...

published Jones's autobiography, ''A Life in Reuters''. Jones had a house at 29 Hyde Park Gate,

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

, where he died on 23 January 1962, and he was buried at Rottingdean, where he also had a home, North End House, previously owned by the artist

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...

. An obituary in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' said he had been one of only two or three leading figures in the world of news. He left an estate valued at £38,042, and probate was granted on 14 May to his daughter Laurian, Comtesse d’Harcourt, wife of Comte Anne-Pierre d’Harcourt."JONES sir George Roderick otherwise Sir Roderick K.B.E." in Probate Index for 1962, at probatesearch.service.gov.uk, accessed 15 April 2020

Family

In 1920, Jones married the author Enid Bagnold, and they had four children. Their only daughter, Laurian, was born in 1921, and was married first, from 1952 to 1955, to Rowland Winn, and second to Anne-Pierre d’Harcourt, the son of

Robert d'Harcourt Robert d'Harcourt (23 November 1881 – 18 June 1965) was a French Catholic intellectual, scholar of German culture and anti-Nazi polemicist. Early years A member of the aristocratic Norman House of Harcourt, d'Harcourt was born at Lumigny-N ...

. A son, Timothy Angus Jones, was born in 1924 and later married Patricia David Pandora Clifford, daughter of

Sir Bede Clifford Captain Sir Bede Edmund Hugh Clifford (3 July 1890 – 6 October 1969) was a British diplomat and colonial administrator, born in New Zealand, where his parents had moved in an unsuccessful attempt at sheep-farming. His parents were William Hug ...

, becoming the father of Annabel Astor, who is the mother of

Samantha Cameron Samantha Gwendoline Cameron (; born 18 April 1971) is an English businesswoman. Until 13 May 2010, she was the creative director of Smythson of Bond Street. Her husband, David Cameron, was the British prime minister from 2010 to 2016. She took ...

. A second son, Richard Bagnold Jones, was born in 1926 and became a writer on

narrow-gauge railways A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structur ...

; A third son, Dominick, was born in 1930. After working at Reuters, he lived on sailing ships, wrote a cookery book, and ran a small theatre. , he was living in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

.Home page
an

at dominick-jones.com, accessed 19 April 2020

Notes

External links

Sir Roderick Jones’s Finest Hour
at thebaron.info
Jones, Roderick Sir 1877–1962
at worldcat.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Roderick 1877 births 1962 deaths Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire People from Dukinfield Reuters people

Life

Family

Notes

Further reading

External links