2016: Via Facebook Mary Kemp has told us: Cecil Duncan Jones spent the war in Ruhleben Civilian Prisoner of War Camp. He was released and sent to Holland in October 1918. Sadly he died on the 10th November 1918.
He was very much respected by the other internees who collected money for an alabaster statue of St.Christopher which was donated in his name to the V&A Museum.
He was a well known Shakespearian actor who also wrote poetry. Whilst in the camp he produced "As you like it" and helped organise a Shakespeare Festival. He was also a very spiritual man and his influence in the camp helped many of the other internees. An old boy of St. Edmund's School, Canterbury.
This information from Mary Kemp prompted us to do some Googling and we found that Europeana Collections have a number of publications about Duncan Jones including an image of the man on https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/2020601/https___1914_1918_europeana_eu_contributions_19459
2022: SHAKESPOW by Ton Hoenselaars is primarily about how Shakespeare was used in the war but it does also explain how the civilian Jones found himself in a PoW camp: "On 6 November 1914, Europe had been engaged for ten weeks in (what was to become) the Great War. Following a series of abortive negotiations between Germany and London over the return of German civilians held in Britain, the Germans, by way of retaliation, decided to arrest all Britons in Germany. This included: those who lived there as well as visitors born of at least one British parent; those born of German parents, but on British soil; as well as those born of any other parent(s) on British soil, and hence endowed with (to the Germans suspect) British citizenship. In January 1915, the additional decision was taken also to intern the British colonials in Germany, who had originally been left at liberty. Some 5,000 male Britons were arrested, whether residents of Germany or just visitors (on business, on holiday, on their honeymoon, on the Grand Tour, studying). All these civilians (emphatically not soldiers) were interned on the site of the converted racecourse of Ruhleben, and most of them were held there, until 11 November 1918, when the armistice was signed." Hoenselaars doesn't say in which category Jones fell but perhaps he was on tour with a group of actors performing Shakespeare.
2022: We also found this link: Silent Thespians : The Cecil Duncan-Jones Collection of Staffordshire Porcelain Figures. An original article from The Connoisseur, 1911.
Our colleague, Andrew Behan, has researched this man and confirms that he died in England.
He was born on 13 June 1883 in Little Gonerby, Grantham, Lincolnshire, the youngest of the three children of The Reverend Duncan Llewellyn Davies Jones (1853-1887) and Elizabeth Jones née Griffiths (1851-1906). His birth was registered as Cecil Edward Worlledge Jones in the 2nd quarter of 1883 in the Grantham registration district.
His father died, aged 34 years, on 6 November 1887 and probate records state that he was formally of Harrowby Road, Grantham, but latterly of Hardway House, Bruton, Bath, Somerset where he died. His effects totalled £821-4s-0d.
It would seem that his widowed mother took to calling the family Duncan Jones (no hyphen) as he is shown as Cecil E. W. Duncan Jones, aged 7 years, on the 1891 census, living at 3 Hill Terrace, Cemetery Road, Louth, Lincolnshire, with his mother, shown as Elizabeth Duncan Jones, living on her own means, his two siblings; Arthur Stuart Duncan Jones (1879-1955) and Sylvia Gertrude Duncan Jones (1880-1941), together with a governess and a female domestic general servant.
However, when the 1901 census was undertaken he was recorded as Cecil E. W. Jones, aged 17 years and as an articled student pupil architect, living at 2 Acacia Road, St John's Wood, Marylebone, London, with his mother, recorded as Elizabeth Jones and his brother, recorded as Arthur S. Jones. Both his mother and brother were shown as living on their own means.
On the outbreak of World War One he was in Alsace Lorraine, Germany (now France), recovering from an operation. He was among many British nationals caught out by the start of the war and was taken, along with 600 others, to a camp at Ruhleben near Berlin, Germany. During his captivity, he continued to adapt and put on plays, he also wrote a volume of poetry entitled 'In Captivity'. By the spring of 1918, he was still in the internment camp but his health was deteriorating due to malnourishment. He was therefore discharged and allowed to travel to Holland (near the Hague), hoping to get to England on an ambulance convoy. A letter to his aunt Millie (on his mother's side) written on 15th October 1918 described living in hotels as it was more economical and his dramatic interests keeping his spirits up. By this time, his health had deteriorated further and his gums were bleeding. He managed to leave Holland on the last ambulance ship and was repatriated to England a fortnight before The Armistice.
He died, aged 35 years, on 10 November 1918 at the Prince of Wales' Hospital, Tottenham Green East, London, N15. His death was registered as Cecil E. W. Duncan-Jones (with a hyphen) in the 4th quarter of 1918 in the Marylebone registration district. He was buried on 19 November 1918 in Plot J1 106 in Hampstead Cemetery, Fortune Green Road, London, NW6 1DR.
The Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission), granted leave for the erection of a standard soldier's headstone over the grave and The Cecil Duncan Jones Memorial Committee carved his gravestone bearing the inscription 'CECIL DUNCAN JONES who after full three years devotion to fellow captives at Ruhleben died in ENGLAND on the eve of the armistice 10 November 1918 aged 35. He spoke to us of allegiance to the master state where now his service being freed is freely given'. A more contemporaneous image of his headstone can be found on the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum website
He is commemorated as 'CECIL DUNCAN-JONES' on both the St Mary's Primrose Hill war memorials, at the Church of St Mary the Virgin, 2 Elsworthy Road, London, NW3 3DU.
