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Idris Jones was for many years the headmaster of Mountain Ash Grammar School.

He was born in July 1900 in the village of Penderyn in Breconshire, one of nine sons of Margaret and John Jones, who was a foreman sand miner in a nearby mine. Idris’s mother was from Cray, and his father from Carmarthenshire.

The Welsh speaking family of nine boys and one girl lived at Gellineuadd Cottages, an isolated pair of houses on the road from Penderyn to Cwm Cadlan. The family attended Soar Welsh Independent Chapel1  in the village.

Idris received his early education at the village school until the age of eleven, when in 1912 he gained entry to Aberdare Intermediate School. He gained his CWB Senior Certificate in 1916, and a CWB Supplementary pass in Latin in 1917. He then entered the Teacher Training Department of University College, Cardiff. However, his studies were cut short when on attaining the age of eighteen he enlisted in the R.A.F. hoping to train for flying duties, but when the war ended in November 1918 he was demobilised.

After the R.A.F. he re-enrolled at Cardiff and pursued two honours courses, resulting in 1921 the award of a 1st Class degree in History, and an upper second in Economics & Political Science. For the quality of his work in these examinations he was awarded the Gladstone Memorial Prize. A further year at Cardiff resulted in the award of a Secondary Teachers’ Diploma in 1922.

His first teaching post was as Senior History and Economics master at Caernarfon County School. He stayed there for seven years, and whilst there successfully submitted a thesis2 for an M.A.

In 1930 he left Wales on his appointment of Deputy Headmaster at the newly opened Thorne Grammar School in Doncaster. As well as his daytime duties, he established many WEA3 classes; his wife, Lilian, also involved herself in the local community when she represented Throne on the West Riding County Council.

In 1931 Idris was appointed as an examiner in history for the Central Welsh Board in Cardiff. Possibly as a result of realising that there were few school textbooks on Welsh history, he set about the arduous task of writing a textbook on modern Welsh history, which was published in 1934.4

Then in 1935 he applied and was successful in being chosen to be Headmaster of Mountain County School. He took up the duties in January 1936, and held this post for the next twenty two years until his retirement. Just three years after starting at Mountain Ash, the Second World War began, which brought pressures of rationing, tight budgets and evacuated pupils who came to share the school building. He also involved himself in fire-watching, and the organisation of the School Flight of the Air Training Corps.

After the War, he grappled with continued shortages, increasing pupil numbers and the conversion from the CWB. School and Higher Certificate to WJEC O and A-level administration, as well as the introduction of changes consequent upon the Butler Education Act of 1944, resulting in a change of school name to Mountain Ash Grammar School.

Idris retired at the end of the Summer Term in 1958. He was able to develop his interests in fishing, golf and motoring as well as reading and research.

Idris married Lilian Jenkins of Cardiff in 1923. They had one son John Kenneth Jones.

Idris Jones died aged 68 in October 1968, and Lilian in 1988 aged 85.

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Footnotes

1. The chapel is now an antique furniture showroom.
2. Idris Jones’ 1928 thesis was entitled, ‘The Wage-earning Classes in Great Britain, 1600–1800.’
3. W.E.A. The Workers' Educational Associations are bodies that provide further education for adults.
4. Modern Welsh History, G. Bell & Sons, 1934. A reviewer described the book as a ‘jog-trot,’ bringing history from Henry Tudor to George V into just 300 pages.

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Acknowledgements

1. The 1962 publication The History of Mountain Ash Grammar School was indispensable in writing this biographical sketch.
2. Numerous articles in archived copies of The Aberdare Leader.

CR, July 2026