Spiritual journeys: “purposeful travel” and the writings of the Reverend Edmund Jones (1702–1793)

ABSTRACT

The Reverend Edmund Jones (1702–1793), an Independent preacher from north-west Monmouthshire, is best known for his works on apparitions, fairies, and ghosts and a notable history of his birth parish. Jones was also a revivalist, undertaking extensive itinerant preaching throughout Wales and the border counties of England until late in his long life. Jones's travel was “purposeful”, and such purposeful travel, undertaken in connection with some vocational occupation, was increasingly widespread throughout the eighteenth century. Like many other eighteenth-century authors, the experience of travel had a profound effect on Jones's worldview and, consequently, on the nature, organisation and subjects of his writings. This article explores the influences of travel on Jones's published and unpublished works in order to examine the effects of purposeful travel on texts not usually regarded as travel literature.

KEYWORDS:

• Purposeful travel
• eighteenth century
• folklore
• religion
• revivalism
• Wales

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Drs Marion Löffler, Mary-Ann Constantine and Rita Singer for their guidance, advice and assistance in the conceptualisation, researching and writing of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The idea of purposeful travel, as opposed to casual or leisured travel, was previously explored by Drs Marion Löffler and Adam N. Coward in a panel on “Purposeful Travellers” at the “‘Minority’ Cultures and Travel” conference held by the project “European Travellers to Wales” at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, 14–16 September 2015. Earlier versions of this article applying the concept of purposeful travel to Edmund Jones were presented at the Aberystwyth University Department of History and Welsh History Research Seminar Series in 2016 and at the Borders and Crossings Travel Writing Conference in Aberystwyth in 2017.

2 Jones dates this Act to 1653, although it is clear that he is discussing the 1650 Act. He may have confused the date of the Act's inception with the refusal of the Commons to renew it on 1 April 1653 (Jones 1779, 92; Watts 2002, 140)

3 Pertaining to the years 1729, 1731, 1732, 1739, 1768, 1770, 1773, 1778, 1780 and 1789, they show that he preached 104, 76, 240, 300, 337, 511, 260, 340 and 405 times, respectively (NLW, MS. 7021–30A; Rees 1861, 432–33).

4 Bradney (1992, 459), records that Jones had a donkey named Shoned, but it is unclear from where this information came, as it is not recorded in other sources.

5 Despite the fact that Jones's first language was almost certainly Welsh, the vast majority of his published and unpublished works, including his diaries, were written in English. This may have reflected a desire to reach a wider audience beyond Wales. However, it is also reflective of the status of English within the transatlantic religious revival, including in Wales, of which Jones was a part (see Coward 2013a, 556–557).