Life
1759-1834; b. Vestington, Co. Meath; ed. TCD; acquired lease on Fishamble
St. Theatre; opened it with The Beggar’s Opera, 6 Mar. 1793;
gained royal patent from Daly, 12 Aug. 1797; opened Crow St. 29 Jan. 1798
with The Merchant of Venice, after lavish remodelling at the expense
of £1,200; sold one-eighth shares to Edward Tuite and Thomas Crampton,
c.1803; moved to London and co-managed Drury Lane with R. B. Sheridan’s
son [Thomas Sheridan up to the fire in 1809; resumed the Crow St. management
to the riot of 1814; on death of Anthony Roche, a deputy manager, c.1815,
he returned to riots and lawsuits; patent expired in 1819 and patent granted
to Henry Harris; Jones’s management of the theatre savagely aspersed
by J. W. Croker in Familiar Epistle on Irish Stage (1804), pseud.;
the eponymous owner of Jones Road, Dublin, he occupied Clonliffe House,
formerly Fortick’s Grove, later to become the Catholic diocesan house
and seminar, and the scene of a celebrated burglary by a gang of ‘highwaymen’
in which Jones, being forewarned, defended his property with blunderbusses,
leading to the death of some of the assailants and the hanging of others
shortly after. DNB DIB
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Notes
Peter Kavanagh, The Irish Theatre (Tralee: The Kerryman
1946), notes that he was at Trinity College with the Earl of Westmeath;
proceeded to decorate Fishamble St. ‘with a degree of excellence
hitherto unknown in Ireland’ (Hibernian Mag., March1793),
and open the theatre for ‘the improvement of scholars and critics’
(see Thespian Dictionary) with The Beggar’s Opera (6
March 1793); Daly surrendered the patent and theatre to Jones, 12 Aug
1797; Jones promptly closed Fishamble St. and managed Crow St. for the
next 21 years; opened Crow St. on 29 Jan. 1798 with The Merchant of
Venice after extensive alterations; after the 1798 Rebellion and the
Emmet Rising, he sold one-eighth shares to Edward Tuite and Thomas Crampton;
retired to London where he co-managed Drury Lane with R. B. Sheridan’s
son [Thomas, ‘Tom’]] till it burnt down; resumed the Crow St.
management till a riot of 1814, caused by the audience’s disappointment
at the withdrawal of an advertised afterpiece; management conducted next
by Crampton and then Anthony Roche, a deputy manager who died before the
1815 season opened; Jones returned to face further riots and lawsuits
before his patent expired in 1819; renewal refused; patent granted to
Henry Harris of London; last performance at Crow St. was Richard the
Third (13 May 1820). See also footnote ( Kavanagh, op. cit., p.392)
to the effect that the Theatre Royal, Abbey St., was build by Buck Jones,
without licence for proper drama under the management of one Mr. Calvert.
The narrative of robbery and defence, in Sir Jonah Barrington’s Memoirs,
reiterated in Weston St. John Joyce, Neighbourhood of Dublin (1939).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)