John Parry Jones

John Parry Jones was born on 2nd November 1849 at Gelli Gwiail cottage near Penrhyndeudraeth (famous as a meeting place for Calvinistic Methodists before they built the chapel). He was the son of Henry Jones, a platelayer on the railway. The 1871 census shows him as a stoker and by August 1872 he was a main line stoker and had become a main line locomotive driver for the FR by March 1880. He was the driver on 15th October 1881 when a down train derailed around the junction of the line from Dinas. The cause was a crack in the axle of a quarryman's carriage. John Parry Jones was blameless and he remained in this job until his death on 12th September 1919. He was living at the Boston Lodge cottages from at least 1881.

He had three daughters and a son, Henry Ellis Jones, who was Station Master at Portmadoc.