In his memoir he states his father an grandfather were absentee landlords,

William Bence Jones (1812-1882), B.L., Lisselane, Clonakilty, London Bar 1837.  Attending Landlord Meeting Bandon Courthouse 1846, listed 1854, 1861, listed 1875-6.  Subscribing £2 1851 to Clonakilty Infant School. 1858 funded erection of Kilmaloda church. Ross representative with Sampson Beamish, Standing Committee, Diocesan Synod 1871. Boycotted during Land war. Irish agriculturist, b. Beccles, Suffolk; his grand father bought an estate at Lisselane, Co. Cork, and Jones undertook its management in 1838 following embezzlement by agent; built Glenville, the family home, and lived there till 1880; his opposition to relief work – advocating emigration and drainage as alternatives – led to attacks by the Land League, followed by a boycott which he successfully resisted; he strenuously opposing Gladstone’s Irish Land Act of 1881, but left Ireland that year;   works include Life’s Work in Ireland of a Landlord Who Tried to Do His Duty (1880); and works on ecclesiastical matters such as What Has Been Done in the Irish Church Since its Disestablishment (1875)

May be descendant of Cork Jones attorney and Droumbeg, Rosscarbery landed family.

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