Jones, (Patrick) Lloyd (1811–86), socialist, trade unionist, and journalist, was born 17 March 1811 at Bandon, Co. Cork. His father, a fustian cutter of Welsh immigrant ancestry, took part in the 1798 rebellion in Dublin, and, as an expression of his nationalism, later converted to catholicism. Although he educated his son with the priesthood in mind, Jones lost his faith as a teenager and moved to Dublin (1825), where he too became a fustian cutter. As a result of his break with belief his father subsequently disowned him, though Jones later returned to religion as a dissenting minister (1841).
Unable to make an adequate living in Ireland, Jones emigrated to England in 1827. After a brief spell in Liverpool he settled in the area of Manchester and Salford, where his interest in the cooperative movement and Owenite socialism found an outlet. He was involved in the founding and running of a short-lived cooperative store and a more successful night school in Salford (to 1831), and during these years rapidly made a name for himself as an effective and popular public speaker. Through his teaching at the school he met Mary Dring, whom he married in 1837, and with whom he had two daughters and three sons. In the same year he dropped his first forename and was known thereafter as Lloyd Jones. A member of the central board of the Association of All Classes of Nations (1837), he became well known throughout the north of England and in London and parts of Scotland through his work with the association's ‘social missionary’ programme. Following the programme's closure in 1845 he became involved with the Leeds Redemption Society (1846) and the National Reform League, and helped to establish the Owenite League of Social Progress (1848). In 1847 he set up in business as a tailor in London. He was increasingly drawn to the Christian Socialist movement, through which he became acquainted with the lawyer and social reformer John Malcolm Ludlow. Appointed manager of the Christian Socialist cooperative store in London in 1850, he promoted the movement in the north and participated in its series of lectures (1852) in London, from which in 1854 emerged the Working Men's College.
Jones was closely involved with the trade union movement from 1827, when he became active in the fustian cutters’ union, and throughout his career he sought to bring about greater understanding between trade unionists and cooperators. He was appointed to the parliamentary committee of the first Trades Union Congress (1871) and, as a well-known advocate of arbitration, was chosen to represent the miners on the first arbitration board for the Durham coalfield (1874). His increasing frustration with Liberal Party policies led him to consider standing for the Gateshead parliamentary seat (1873) as a member of the Labour Representation League (of which he acted as secretary, 1869–72), and in 1885 he agreed to contest the radical Chester-le-Street constituency in Co. Durham as an independent miners’ candidate. His lack of funding proved crucial and to his acute disappointment he failed to be elected.
Jones's prolific journalistic career began in the 1840s. He helped to launch and edit the Owenite journal Spirit of the Age (1848), and contributed to a wide variety of newspapers and journals including the Spirit of the Times, under the pseudonym ‘Cromwell’ (1849), Weekly Tribune (1849–50), Glasgow Sentinel, from which he was dismissed in 1862 for failing to support the American Confederacy, North British Daily Mail (1865–9), Newcastle Weekly Chronicle (1876–86), Newcastle Daily Chronicle (1876–86), Christian Socialist, and Co-operative News. A one-time editor of the London Reader (from 1863) and the short-lived Miner's Watchman and Labour Sentinel (1878), he founded and edited the Leeds Express (1857), but was forced to sell his stake in the paper before it became financially secure. His reputation as a journalist rests on his famous leaders for the Bee-Hive (1871–6) and its successor, the Industrial Review (1877–8). Among his other writings were numerous pamphlets on cooperativism and labour-related issues, his book The progress of the working classes, 1832–1867 (1867), produced with Ludlow, and a biography of Robert Owen, which was posthumously published in 1890. Cooperativism remained the chief and abiding concern throughout his career. Among those who arranged the first Co-operative Congress (1869), he served as its president in 1885. He died of cancer at his home, 14 St Michael's Road, Stockwell, London, 22 May 1886. His wife died nine days later.