Beginning as an amateur, he was induced by the pecuniary difficulties of his father to adopt the stage as a profession, and played Romeo, Norval, Hamlet, &c., at Lichfield, Newcastle, and Bolton.

In Ireland he remained playing in all the principal towns, until he came to London to Covent Garden, at which house he appeared on 9 October 1807 as Goldfinch in the ‘Road to Ruin’ and Frederick in ‘Of Age To-morrow,’ an entertainment by Thomas Dibdin, with music by Michael Kelly.

Gingham in Reynolds's ‘The Rage,’ first taken by Lewis, was his third part, and he was on 17 November 1807 the original Count Ignacio in T. Dibdin's ‘Two Faces under one Hood.’ Dick in the ‘Confederacy,’ Bob Handy in ‘Speed the Plough,’ Belcour in the ‘West Indian,’ and Tangent in the ‘Way to get Married,’ were among the rôles taken during his first season.

Jeremy Diddler in Raising the Wind, Rolando in the ‘Honeymoon,’ Rover in ‘Wild Oats,’ Captain Beldare in ‘Love laughs at Locksmiths,’ Wilford in the ‘Iron Chest,’ Sir Charles Racket in ‘Three Weeks after Marriage,’ show how wide a range was now assigned him.

The authorship of the ‘Green Man,’ a play in three acts, produced at the Haymarket 15 Aug. 1818, with Terry as Mr. Green, Jones as Crackley, and Mrs. Gibbs and Mrs. Julia Glover in the principal female characters, was claimed by him, but did not pass undisputed; while ‘Too Late for Dinner,’ which was produced at Covent Garden, 22 February 1820, and is said on its title-page to be ‘by Richard Jones, Esquire,’ was assigned to Theodore Hook.

On 3 June 1833, after a benefit, not announced as a farewell, in which he played Young Contrast and Alfred Highflyer, and received the assistance of Taglioni and Malibran, he took an unostentatious leave of the stage, and gave thenceforward lessons in elocution.

His namesake and manager in Dublin, Frederick Edward Jones, in some well-known verses, noted, at the outset of his career, faults in his style, which were never quite overcome.