Early Years
Jack Jones was born in 1884 at Tai-Harri-Blawdd in Merthyr Tydfil, the son of a coal miner. He joined his father to work in the mine aged 12. At the age of 17 he joined the army and was posted to South Africa with his regiment the Militia Battalion of the Welch. However he was very unhappy there and ended up deserting. Once recaptured, he was transferred to India. When he eventually returned to Wales he went back to working in the coal mines. He married Laura Grimes Evans in 1908. In 1914 Jack Jones was summoned back to his regiment and sent to the front lines in France and later on Belgium. After suffering shrapnel wounds he was invalided home and appointed as recruiting officer for Merthyr Tydfil.
After World War I, Jack Jones became a member of the Communist Party and he attended a convention in Manchester with the purpose of establishing a British Communist Party on behalf of his local lodge. At this meeting he was chosen to be Corresponding Secretary for the South Wales Region. Jack Jones later founded a branch of the Communist Party at Merthyr Tydfil. In 1923 he was appointed as the full-time secretary-representative of the miners at Blaengarw, a position he held until his resignation in 1927.
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