Family background
George Parker (GP) Jones was born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, in January 1839, the third of four children born to Thomas and Mary Jones. Thomas was a carpenter and joiner with shops on Comber Street and Scotland Road in Liverpool. On the promise that in Sydney ‘sailors ride on horseback and priests in carriages’, the Jones family made the 94-day journey aboard the brig, Diana, arriving in Sydney in February 1849. After a brief stint as a plumber’s apprentice, GP Jones followed his father into the carpentry and joinery trade. The family first lived in a weatherboard home in Pitt Street and by the mid–1850s, Thomas Jones had purchased property for the purposes of expanding his business, in both Port Stephens and Haymarket.
GP Jones married Eleanor (Ellen) Fargher on 7 October 1861 at Christ Church St Laurence, George Street, Sydney. Eleanor gave birth to six boys with four surviving infancy: George Parker Jnr (1862–1933), Thomas (1864–1930), Sidney (1865–1932) and Robert (1867–1958). His wife Eleanor died in 1873 and in 1880, GP Jones married Ellen Newby from the Manning River. With Ellen, GP Jones fathered four more children: Eleanor (known as Nellie) (1882–1921), Amy (1885–1967), Una (known as Myee) (1890–1987) and Horace (1891–1915). GP Jones’ youngest child would outlive his father by only one year, dying in Netley Hospital, Southampton from wounds sustained during the Gallipoli campaign at the battle of Hill 60.
While GP Jones spent most of his life in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, for four years from 1859 to 1862 he lived in Armidale in Northern NSW while working on the construction of the city’s courthouse. His first Armidale residence was the Crown Inn (now the St Kilda Hotel) on Rusden Street. Upon his return to Sydney, GP Jones owned a number of properties in Paddington including on Paddington Street, Caledonia Lane (his builders’ workshop), Underwood Street and McGarvie Street. By 1913, GP Jones was living at his home ‘Canberra’, on Imperial Avenue, Bondi.
GP Jones died on 23 November 1914 while visiting his son, George Parker Jones Jnr in Paddington. He was buried in the Jones family plot at Waverley Cemetery two days later where a graveside service was conducted by fellow members of the Paddington Church of Christ.
Occupation & interests
GP Jones started his working life in 1853 as an apprentice to his father, Thomas Jones, working first on the construction of a store on the corner of York and Barrack streets. His father died just four years later (his mother having already passed away), so from the age of 17, GP Jones worked for a variety of contractors and then for ten years for Mr Alexander Dean of the firm, Dean & Sons, beginning in 1866. In 1876, GP Jones partnered with Mr Dugald McIntyre (with whom GP Jones would later serve on the Paddington Council) to complete many building works in and around Sydney including the Moss Vale Court House, extensive additions to Government House, the railway stations at Blacktown and Windsor and the Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company Building in Pitt Street.
This last building was completed in 1886 and was the final contract fulfilled by Jones & McIntyre. After this, GP Jones traded independently as GP Jones & Sons (Builders and Contractors) alongside three of his eldest children (the other, Thomas, becoming a master plumber). In this business, GP Jones worked on a variety of building projects including the Waverley Post and Telegraph Office, Crown Law Offices on Macquarie Street and the Children’s Hospital (part of the Thomas Walker estate, now known as Rivendell in Concord). In 1909 he retired and transferred the business to his three sons, with a trade magazine noting that GP Jones was now dedicating his time to ‘bowls and surf bathing’.
GP Jones was involved in the NSW campaign for the eight-hour working day from its outset and he was an ardent supporter of Sir Henry Parkes on this issue and the issue of Australia’s federation. In his memoir, The Road I Came (published in 1914 and later donated to the State Library) he recalls the day the carpenters and joiners formed a league with other trades to demand an eight-hour day as the ‘brightest day of my existence.’ GP Jones was also a frequent attendee of the School of Arts in Pitt Street and would listen to the debates held by the School of Arts Debating Society. One debate that lasted two nights was about the merits of the eight-hour working day.
Community activity
GP Jones was a lifelong member of the Independent Association of Oddfellows, being initiated into the Loyal Victoria Lodge in Sussex Street in 1865. He then filled every office in the organisation, except as Financial Secretary. He was elected a Worshipful Master of the United Grand Lodge of NSW in 1895. GP Jones was appointed a member of the Board of Conciliation and Arbitration in 1892 and was elected President of the Builders’ and Contractors’ Association in 1893. By 1894, GP Jones was President of the Federated Builders’ and Contractors’ Association of Australasia. In 1911, GP Jones retired from the role of Honorary Treasurer of the Master Builders’ Association (as it was known from 1901) and in the same year was unanimously elected a Life Member. His son, George Parker Jones junior became President of the Master Builders Association two years later. GP Jones was appointed Justice of the Peace and Magistrate of the colony of NSW in 1896.
GP Jones was an enthusiastic member of the Church of Christ, with his personal effects containing letters of thanks for donations made to ‘Home Mission Work’ and the Church’s Sunday School. He was elected Vice President of the Associated Churches of Christ of NSW in 1899 and became President of that organisation in 1901. The matters of most interest at this time were evangelistic work, supporting the work of foreign missions in India, classes ‘for the education of the Chinese’ in NSW, the development of a new church in the newly established federal capital, Canberra, and ‘temperance work’. On 10 November 1901, GP Jones laid the foundation stone of the Church of Christ building in Paddington Street, Paddington.
Local government service
GP Jones was first elected alderman for the borough of Paddington (Upper Ward) on 11 February 1889 and served from 1889 to 1897. He was elected Mayor of Paddington by his fellow council members for the year 1895–6. During his time on the council, GP Jones was a member of various council committees including the Finance, Town Hall, Library and the Council Municipal Association Committees. Alongside four of his fellow aldermen, GP Jones was elected to a committee that oversaw the construction of the new Paddington Town Hall, which included a public library. On 11 May 1892, GP Jones attended the opening of the new Free Paddington Library, reportedly the first of its kind in the eastern suburbs.
In 1894, GP Jones supported the MP for Newtown, Mr Hindle, in his attack on the ‘character of Parliament’ in NSW. Hindle described some MPs as ‘drunken, licentious brutes’ and warned the public against voting for such members at the next election (Daily Telegraph, 20 February 1894). In July 1895, GP Jones (now Paddington’s mayor) announced the resolution of a long standing issue; the transfer of control over the Barrack Reserve to Paddington Council, mainly for the purpose of protecting the trees within the reserve The council unanimously adopted GP Jones’ plan to widen and macadamise Oxford Street for vehicular traffic and create a tree-lined boulevard for pedestrians along the entire frontage of the Victoria Barracks.
References
Compiled and researched by Joanne Gregory, 2025
The information about this alderman was compiled in collaboration with Woollahra Library and Information Service.
John Elder, The History of the Master Builders Association of NSW: The First Hundred Years, PhD thesis, The University of Sydney, 2007, http://hdl.handle.net/2123/1936
George Parker Jones, The Road I Came, Sydney: Building Limited, 1915
‘The Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company’, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 April 1886, p. 9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13631296
‘Opening of the Paddington Free Public Library’, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 1892, p. 5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13848656
‘A condemnation of Parliament’, Daily Telegraph, 20 February 1894, p. 6, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article236104742
‘Barrack Reserve, Paddington’, Sydney Morning Herald, 24 July 1895, p. 4, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14012914
‘Municipal Notes’, Daily Telegraph, 29 July 1895, p. 7, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article238524563
‘Biographical – Mr G. Parker Jones JP’,The Building, Engineering and Mining Journal, 21 May 1897
‘Attorney General’s Department’, The NSW Government Gazette, 16 September 1892, p. 7473, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article222204687
The Manchester Unity Magazine of NSW, 30 September 1911
Sands Postal Directory, City of Sydney Archives, https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/495003
Museums of History, Register of Firms Index, https://mhnsw.au/indexes/business-and-company-records/register-of-firms-index/
Paddington Council Records, https://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/Library/Local-history/Research-guides-and-resources/council-records