Early years

Jones was born in Rhymney

Rhymney

Rhymney is a town and a community located in the county borough of Caerphilly in south-east Wales, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire. Along with the villages of Pontlottyn, Fochriw, Abertysswg, Deri and New Tredegar, Rhymney is designated as the 'Upper Rhymney Valley' by the local...

, Bedwellty

Bedwellty

Bedwellty was a parish and urban district in Monmouthshire, South Wales, until 1974.The original ancient parish was very large, including most of the upper Ebbw and Sirhowy valleys...

, Monmouthshire

Monmouthshire (historic)

Monmouthshire , also known as the County of Monmouth , is one of thirteen ancient counties of Wales and a former administrative county....

. His parents, David Rees Jones and Hannah Jones (née Evans) and his sister Annie and brothers Rees and David Rees spoke only Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 whereas Abel spoke Welsh and English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 (and later German) fluently.

Wireless

He was involved with Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi

Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...

's first wireless signal transmission over water on the 13 May 1897 from Lavernock Point to Flatholm Island in south Wales.

Degree

Abel studied at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth

University of Wales, Aberystwyth

Aberystwyth University is a university located in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding Member Institution of the former federal University of Wales. As of late 2006, the university had over 12,000 students spread across seventeen academic departments.The university was founded in 1872 as...

 from 1898–1901, and was awarded a BSc.

Teaching career

He taught science and mathematics and was Senior Master at Narberth

Narberth

Narberth may refer to:*Narberth, Pembrokeshire, a town in Wales*Narberth, Pennsylvania, a town in the United States*Narberth , a traditional hundred of Pembrokeshire in Wales...

 County Intermediate School, Pembrokeshire

Pembrokeshire

Pembrokeshire is a county in the south west of Wales. It borders Carmarthenshire to the east and Ceredigion to the north east. The county town is Haverfordwest where Pembrokeshire County Council is headquartered....

, from February 1904 to July 1905 under the headmastership of John Morgan MA.

PhD & Cambridge University

From 1905 to 1906 he studied at the German University of Jena under the philosopher Rudolf Christoph Eucken

Rudolf Christoph Eucken

Rudolf Christoph Eucken was a German philosopher, and the winner of the 1908 Nobel Prize for Literature.-Early life:...

 and was awarded a PhD. From 1906 Abel was Scholar of Clare College, Cambridge

Clare College, Cambridge

Clare College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1326, making it the second-oldest surviving college of the University after Peterhouse. Clare is famous for its chapel choir and for its gardens on "the Backs"...

 reading for the Moral Sciences Tripos (BA 1908, MA 1912).

After leaving Cambridge, Abel taught in elementary and secondary schools (including Bootham School, York

York

York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

)and lectured in Philosophy at Clare College before his appointment as an assistant lecturer in the Education Department of the University College, Cardiff

Cardiff University

Cardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...

.

OBE

He became the youngest person to be appointed one of His Majesty's Inspector of Schools in Wales (1910–1938). During the years 1914–1918, he was Secretary for War Savings in Glamorgan

Glamorgan

Glamorgan or Glamorganshire is one of the thirteen historic counties and a former administrative county of Wales. It was originally an early medieval kingdom of varying boundaries known as Glywysing until taken over by the Normans as a lordship. Glamorgan is latterly represented by the three...

 for which he was later awarded an OBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

.

Nine Books Published

He had at least nine books published, the first of which concerned Rudolf Euken (1912) (see above). In 1938 he invented a much improved version of shorthand

Shorthand

Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed or brevity of writing as compared to a normal method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos and graphē or graphie...

 which proved very popular, "Abbrevia Shortwriting," and in 1939 wrote a biography of "John Morgan MA - A Man Elect of Men" (also see above).

Two auto-biographical books appeared in 1943 and 1944; "I Was Privileged" and "From an Inspector's Bag" and a further two books with a more philosophical outlook were published in 1944 and 1945 "In Search of Truth" and "For a Human Advance".

He died in Porthcawl

Porthcawl

Porthcawl is a town on the south coast of Wales in the county borough of Bridgend, 25 miles west of the capital city, Cardiff and 19 miles southeast of Swansea...

, south Wales.

External links