Samuel Jones (academy Tutor) - Posthumous Reputation

Posthumous Reputation

If anything, Jones's reputation grew after his death. Andrew Kippis, minister of Newington Green Unitarian Church, wrote in his biography of Joseph Butler in the Biographia Britannica that Jones was 'a man of uncommon abilities' and 'erudition', with a 'high and deserved reputation.' He believed that Jones paid great attention to his students' 'morals' and 'progress in literature', directing their studies with 'skill and discernment.' Of Samuel Chandler's education, he commented that he had 'a singular advantage' to be placed under 'so able and accomplished a tutor.'

Thomas Secker, who lived with Jones as one of his students, wrote to Isaac Watts, who had encouraged him to study there, that his teacher was "a man of real piety, great learning, and an agreeable temper; one who is very diligent in instructing all under his care, very well qualified to give instructions, and whose well-managed familiarity will always make him respected. He is very strict in keeping good orders, and will effectually preserve his pupils from negligence and immorality." Secker was well placed to discriminate, judging his previous school, Timothy Jollie's dissenting academy at Attercliffe, quite harshly: frustrated by Jollie's poor teaching, he famously remarked that he lost his knowledge of languages and that 'only the old Philosophy of the Schools was taught there: and that neither ably nor diligently. The morals also of many of the young Men were bad. I spent my time there idly & ill'.