Frank Harding Jones
Frank Harding Jones (c1874-1954), chairman of the South Metropolitan Gas Co
1954 Obituary [1]
WE regret to record the death of Mr. Frank Harding Jones, M.I.C.E., which occurred at 78, Kensington Court, London, W.8, on Friday last, July 9th.
Mr. Jones, who was in his eighty-first year, occupied a prominent position for many years in this country's gas industry.
He was born in London and was the son of the late H. E. Jones, a former president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and of the Institution of Gas Engineers.
Frank Jones was educated at Rugby, and became subsequently a pupil of Sir John Wolfe Barry, to whom later he acted as assistant engineer during the building of Tower Bridge.
He occupied similar positions during the carrying out of many other engineering projects, including the Glasgow railway subway.
Mr. Jones then spent some years with his father in consulting engineering practice in Westminster, and thereafter became a director and chairman of many gas companies in this country and abroad, arid some water supply undertakings.
He was appointed to the board of the South Metropolitan Gas Company in 1912, becoming chairman and president of the company in 1937. Mr. Jones was quick to appreciate the advantages to be derived from larger administrative units for gas supply, and consequently took an important part in the negotiations leading to the amalgamation of many gas companies.
Mr. Jones was chairman of the Herts and Essex Waterworks Company, and of the General Hydraulic Power Company, Ltd. He retired from these companies and from the gas undertakings, with which he had been for so long associated, in 1949.
Mr. Jones was chairman of the British Commercial Gas Association in 1928, and was also the last president - his father having been the first - of the National Gas Council.
For more than forty years Mr. Jones lived at Matching, near Harlow, Essex, where he took a keen and active interest in many local and county affairs.
1954 Obituary [2]