Roderick Jones

Sir George Roderick Jones was born on 21 October 1877 in Dukinfield, Cheshire. He was the only son of Roderick Patrick Jones, a Manchester hat salesman, and Christina Drennan Gibb. His parents married at St Saviour's Church in Manchester on 13 September 1877, the month prior to his birth. His paternal grandfather, John Jones, was a butcher.

In 1894, Jones moved to Pretoria in the South African Republic to live with an aunt. The following year, he secured a position as a sub-editor on the Pretoria Press and later became an assistant to the Reuters correspondent in the region. His interview with Leander Starr Jameson after the Jameson Raid in 1896 gained international attention when it was networked globally.

By 1905, Jones had become the general manager of Reuters' office for British South Africa. During World War I, in April 1915, the Reuters general manager in London, Baron Herbert de Reuter, committed suicide shortly after the death of his wife, amid financial difficulties faced by the company. Subsequently, in October 1915, Jones was appointed general manager of Reuters. In 1916, he and the company chairman, Mark Napier, who was also a financier, purchased the company with financial support from Sir Starr Jameson, chairman of the British South Africa Company.

During the remainder of the war, Reuters maintained a patriotic stance. Jones was accused of serving as the British government's head of propaganda during this period. In recognition of his contributions to journalism, he was knighted in the 1918 New Year Honours.

Under Jones's leadership, Reuters became the first news agency to use radio technology to transmit news to subscribers, in 1923. He held the positions of chairman and general manager until his retirement in 1941. Following his retirement, the company's ownership structure was reorganized to transfer ownership to subscribing newspapers.

Jones published his autobiography, "A Life in Reuters," in 1951, which was released by Hodder & Stoughton. He resided at 29 Hyde Park Gate, Westminster, and passed away there on 23 January 1962. He was buried in Rottingdean, where he also owned North End House, previously owned by artist Edward Burne-Jones. An obituary published by The Times described him as one of the leading figures in the world of news. His estate was valued at £38,042, and probate was granted on 14 May 1962 to his daughter Laurian, who became the Comtesse d’Harcourt through her marriage to Comte Anne-Pierre d’Harcourt.

In 1920, Jones married author Enid Bagnold, with whom he had four children. Their daughter Laurian was born in 1921 and was married twice: first to Rowland Winn from 1952 to 1955, and then to Anne-Pierre d’Harcourt, son of Robert d'Harcourt. Their son Timothy Angus Jones was born in 1924 and married Patricia David Pandora Clifford, daughter of Sir Bede Clifford; he was the father of Annabel Astor, the mother of Samantha Cameron. Their son Richard Bagnold Jones, born in 1926, authored works on narrow-gauge railways and, as of 2019, resided in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Another son, Dominick, born in 1930, worked at Reuters, lived aboard sailing ships, authored a cookery book, and managed a small theatre.

Notes and further reading references include works such as Donald Read's "Sir Roderick Jones and Reuters: Rise and Fall of a News Emperor" and Roderick Jones's own autobiography.