Sir Charles Sydney Jones

Sir Charles Sydney Jones was the son of Charles William Jones, a shipowner from Liverpool. He attended Charterhouse School and Magdalen College, Oxford. He never married. In religion Jones was a Unitarian, a member of the Unitarian Church in Ullet Road, Liverpool. In 1921 he was elected President of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. He got involved in public service through the church and later worked at the Liverpool University Settlement in boy’s clubs and in the establishment of maternity and ante-natal clinics.

Jones followed his father into the shipping industry. He was a member of the firm of Alfred Holt and Co. of Liverpool, the owners of the Blue Funnel shipping line. He was sometime Chairman of the Liverpool Steamship Owners’ Association.

Jones entered municipal politics in Liverpool first becoming a member of the City Council in 1908. He was later created an Alderman and served as Lord Mayor of Liverpool from 1938–1942. He was appointed High Sheriff of Lancashire for the year 1929-1930 and also served as a Justice of the Peace. Jones was knighted in the 1937 Coronation Honours. During the early years of Second World War, when the City was the subject of severe bombing attacks from the enemy, he was a prominent member of the Liverpool Emergency Committee and he set up the Air Raid Distress Fund to help victims of the bombing. He later had the honour, as Lord Mayor, of greeting Prime Minister, Winston Churchill on his surprise visit to Liverpool on 27 September 1941. He was made an honorary freeman of the City of Liverpool.