[2] Jones was born at Goginan, Cardiganshire, and educated at Lewis School, Pengam, and the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth.

On 1 August 1912 Jones married a colleague, Muriel Gwendolen Edwards, a keen climber and the first woman to be elected a Fellow of the University of Wales.

[4] In 1901 he obtained an official appointment of demonstrator to the Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy, Sir James Dewar, which he held up to the time of his death.

For eleven years Jones devoted most of his time to teaching in the university laboratory and to the supervision of the science students of his college.

These researches had made Jones familiar with low temperature manipulations and ultimately led to their discovery of carbon monosulfide.

Together with Karl Blodig, Geoffrey Winthrop Young and the guide Josef Knubel of St Niklaus he made the first ascent of the Brouillard ridge to the summit of Mont Blanc on 9 August 1911.