Born 2 December 1857 at Ynyscynhaiarn, Carnarvonshire, the eldest son and second child of the Rev Thomas Jones (born 1826) of Cefnmaesydd, afterwards of Eisteddfa, Criccieth, a small landed proprietor, and Elizabeth, the only daughter of Robert Jones of Eisteddfa; seven of their ten children grew up. Thomas Jones was christened and confirmed in the Church of England but, disturbed by the religious neglect of the people, he joined the Congregationalists and had places of worship built for them at Pentrefelin, Penmorfa, Rhos-lan and Criccieth. Helped by Samuel Morley (see *DNB*), John Rylands (see *DNB*) and others, he founded a society to support the ministries of south Carnarvonshire and also started "British schools" at Pentrefelin and Tremadoc. His missionary zeal continued for fifty years. His wife, whom he married in 1855, claimed to be the twenty-first in lineal descent from Collwyn ap Tangno, one of the Welsh princes who was Lord of Eifionydd. Robert Armstrong Jones (he assumed the surname of Armstrong-Jones in 1914) was educated at Pormadoc Grammar School, to which he walked three and a half miles each way in all weathers, at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth, where he entered at the age of fourteen, and at Grove Park School, Wrexham. He matriculated for London University in 1875 and after six months at the surgery of Robert Jones, MRCS 1850, at Pormadoc, he entered St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College on 1 October 1876. Here he acted as prosector for the anatomy lecturers, and won the Wix essay prize and the Hichens prize after an examination in Butler's *Analogy of religion*. He then served from 1880 to 1882 as junior medical officer to the (Royal) Earlswood Institution and from 1882 to 1888 at Colney Hatch Asylum. During this period he took the London MD in 1883 and the FRCS in 1885. He went back to Earlswood as medical superintendent in 1888, till in 1893 he was elected the medical superintendent of the first new asylum of the first London County Council at Claybury, near Woodford, Essex. Frederick Mott (1853-1926, Kt, FRS, see *DNB*) was appointed at the same time pathologist to the asylum, and with Jones's cordial encouragement he began the long series of scientific publications which so greatly influenced psychiatric progress. Claybury was the first municipal asylum to take private paying patients, under the Lunacy Act of 1890. Besides the ordinary asylum an annexe was started for patients unable to afford a private institution yet above the pauper class - "a private asylum under public control". The experiment was successful: an old country house - Claybury Hall - was reconditioned and provided with accommodation for fifty male patients, the surroundings being made as home-like as possible. This progressive step, taken by the LCC at the instigation of Sir William J Collins FRCS, has been copied by many other authorities. While at Claybury, Jones was nominated honorary secretary of the (Royal) Medico-psychological Association and served the office for ten years, receiving, when he resigned, an illuminated address from the council and nomination to the presidential chair. He was also secretary of the psychology section of the British Medical Association at the Newcastle meeting in 1893, and president of the same section at the Swansea meeting in 1903. With Frederick Eustace Batten, MD (1865-1918), he was joint secretary of the psychology section at the second international congress on school hygiene held in London in 1907. In 1932 he was president of the section of psychiatry at the Royal Society of Medicine. During his time at Claybury he organized the teaching of mental nurses, and this was the first asylum under the London County Council to begin special training of mental nurses by lectures and demonstrations from the medical staff. Previously no LCC nurse had sat for the certificate in nursing given by the Medico-psychological Association; it is now universal. In recognition of this improvement Armstrong-Jones was made a Knight of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. At Claybury much attention was also given to the employment of patients by what came to be called "occupational therapy". Many hundred standard roses were budded or grafted by patients for the gardens and courts, which they kept in order themselves. Another occupation was the making of shell-cases during the first world war. While he was at Claybury, Armstrong-Jones gave evidence with W McAdam Eccles, FRCS, before the Select committee of Parliament on physical deterioration; and at the request of the British Medical Association he gave evidence for it, with Sir Thomas Clouston, MD (1840-1915), before the Royal Commission on divorce and matrimonial causes in 1910. He was nominated a Justice of the Peace for Essex. He was appointed in the same period lecturer on mental diseases at St Bartholomew's; in this capacity he held demonstrations in the wards and laboratory at Claybury and continued them for fifteen years. He had already held similar positions at Westminster Hospital and at the postgraduate college attached to the West London Hospital, Hammersmith. He ultimately became consulting physician on mental diseases at St Bartholomew's. The University of Wales recognized his work by conferring on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Science in 1918. He resigned the post of medical superintendent at Claybury at the end of 1916, as he was beginning to feel the strain of twenty-five years' institutional work among the insane. The LCC asylums committee recognized his services by a special addition to his pension, while he received marks of esteem from the medical and lay staff who had served under him, and a special record of praise from the Board of Control. He was gazetted a Knight Bachelor in the New Year's honours of 1917. His zeal and administrative ability, no less than his urbanity and clinical skill, had won Claybury a world-wide reputation. During the war of 1914-18 he was the first consulting physician in mental diseases to the London command with the rank of temporary honorary major in the RAMC (T), his commission being dated 5 January 1917. His jurisdiction was extended to include the Aldershot command and he was promoted temporary lieutenant-colonel on 25 May 1918. He was also consulting physician to the American Red Cross Hospital at Alford House. For these services he was awarded the CBE (military) in 1919. From 1917 to 1927 he was Gresham professor of physic. In 1921 he was appointed by Lord Birkenhead to be one of the three Lord Chancellor's visitors in lunacy, his colleagues being Sir James Crichton-Browne, MD (1840-1938) and Lord Sandhurst. In connexion with his duties he travelled widely in Europe, Russia, and North Africa to study foreign asylums. He also served on the Archbishop (Lord Davidson) of Canterbury's special committee on spiritual healing, 1920-23. In 1925 he gave evidence about defective child offenders before the Home Office (Molony) committee on young offenders, on behalf of the Magistrates Association, of which he was the first founding member. He was nominated a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for the counties of London and Carnarvonshire, and was High Sheriff of Carnarvonshire in 1929. He married in 1893 Margaret Elizabeth, elder daughter of Sir Owen Roberts, DCL, who was High Sheriff of Carnarvonshire in 1904. Sir Owen Roberts was Clerk of the Clothworkers' Company, a pioneer of technical education and one of the founders of Somerville College, Oxford; a scholarship is named after him at the Royal Free Hospital. Lady Armstrong-Jones was interested in charitable and social work. She was a governor of Westminster Hospital and of the Welsh Schools at Ashford, Middlesex, and a Dame of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. Of their three children, the eldest, Elaine, married Colonel C E Wauchope, MC, Royal Artillery; the son Ronald became a barrister, and, like his father and grandfather, was High Sheriff of Carnarvonshire in 1936-37, and became Deputy Judge Advocate during the second world war; the younger daughter, Gwendolen, married the Hon Denys Buckley, youngest son of the first Lord Wrenbury (1845-1935). Armstrong-Jones died on 30 January 1943, at Plas Dinas, Carnarvon, aged 85, and was buried at Llanwnda. His wife and children survived him. A memorial service was held at St Bartholomew-the-Less on 9 February 1943, when W McAdam Eccles, FRCS gave the funeral oration. Lady Armstrong-Jones died on 2 May 1943. Armstrong-Jones was above middle height, of spare figure and somewhat military bearing. He was not only an excellent clinician and teacher, but a wise counsellor and a first-rate director and inspirer of other men's work. He was a man of decided views and often wrote letters to *The Times* and articles for the lay reviews as well as for professional journals. He furthered not a little the great advances in care and treatment of lunatics which took place during his life, for he was, at least on the administrative side, the master alienist of his day. His second brother, John Lloyd Thomas Jones (1862-1925), MRCS 1885, became a lieutenant-colonel in the Indian Medical Service and then assay master of the Indian mint at Bombay and Calcutta (see Crawford's *Roll of the IMS*, Bombay list No 1091, and *Brit med J*. 1925, 2, 1036). Another brother became head of a banking business in the east, and the youngest, David Fowden Jones, took a prominent part in Carnarvonshire affairs and unsuccessfully contested the county as a Conservative. His eldest sister married Robert Davies Evans, MRCP Edinburgh, High Sheriff and a JP of Merionethshire. Her son, Sir Thomas Carey-Evans, FRCS, married Olwen, elder daughter of David Lloyd George, PC, MP, OM. Publications:- *A textbook of mental and sick nursing*. Introduction by Sir W J Collins, FRCS London, 1907. Relation of insanity and epilepsy, in Allbutts' *System of medicine*, Vol. 8. *The growth of the mind* (Henderson Trust lecture). Edinburgh, 1929.