Prichard-Jones Institute Papers

Comprises souvenir material of the opening of the Prichard-Jones Institute, Newborough, Anglesey in 1905 and a short biography of Sir John Prichard-Jones composed by Dilys Humphreys in 1989.

The Prichard-Jones Institute, opened in 1905 at Newborough, Anglesey, may be described as a community centre for the people of Newborough. It consisted of a library, facilities for exhibitions, meetings and lectures. Also on the site were cottages which were made available to local elderly people, subject to certain criteria, who would also be paid a pension from a fund established by Sir John Prichard-Jones.

John Prichard-Jones was born in 1845 at Tyn-y-Coed, a small farm at Newborough, Anglesey. When he was fourteen he was apprenticed to a draper in Caernarfon and afterwards moved to Pwllheli, then Bangor and eventually, when he was nineteen, to London. In 1872 he entered the firm of Dickens, Stevens and Dickens in Regent Street. Here he was successively promoted, to buyer, manager, director, chairman of the board and finally to partner, when the name of the store was changed to Dickens and Jones. He was involved in the management of other businesses and was prominent in movements for the promotion of workers welfare and supported profit sharing schemes for his employees. He maintained lifelong links with his native area where he had a home and was a generous benefactor of the University of Wales, Bangor which awarded him an honorary doctorate. He was made High Sheriff and Deputy Lieutenant of Anglesey and knighted for his services to education and the community. He died in 1917 at his London home, the result of an accident.

Material was received on separate occasions and arranged in chronological order and incorporated into the General Collection of Bangor Manuscripts .

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The souvenir material was deposited by Eirwyn Owen, Bangor in 1950; the biographical note by Dilys Humphreys, Anglesey in 1989.

Description compiled by Anne Lenaghan, April 2002.

Item level word-processed list is available at the Archives Department of the University of Wales, Bangor. Reference numbers: General Collection of Bangor Manuscripts: 32264-6, 36476

Usual copyright conditions apply. Reprographics are made at the discretion of the Archivist.

Further biographical material on Sir John Prichard-Jones is held at the Archives Department of the University of Wales, Bangor, reference number: General Collection of Bangor Manuscripts, 18650