Eric Jones
(???? – January 8, 1967)
Eric Jones was a longtime fan from London and later Cheltenham, UK active from the early 1950s. He was a member of the Nor'west Science Fantasy Club (NSFC), the West Country Science Fiction Group and the Cheltenham Circle. He was also a founding member and Knight Grand Master of the Order of St. Fantony. At its first initiation in 1957, he wore a black bow-tie, embroidered waistcoat, flowing cloaks and a gleaming helmet adorned with a crest and a propeller beanie. Keith Freeman said of him:
Eric was one of the most amiable, pleasant and intelligent people I've ever met; I never heard a bad word spoken about him, and yet he's become one of the "forgotten fans". Thinking about it, I suddenly realised that I've known many people who come up with ideas; Eric not only came up with ideas but almost invariably he saw them through to fruition – and this made him an extraordinary man to my mind[1].
Jones had been an engineer on Sunderland flying boats during the Second World War. He lived in Pinner near London in the early 1950s and Freeman said that he attended Festivention in 1951 although there's no other evidence of that. He did however certainly attend the London SF Con of 1952 and every UK convention thereafter aside from the Supermancon of 1954 which he had to miss through ill health. Although not resident in the north-west he printed Space Times for the NSFC and attended Mancon in October 1952, likely the only Londoner to do so.
Space Times 6 (November 1952) recorded a move to a temporary address in Cheltenham with a permanent address in the town listed from January 1953. He was at some point employed by GCHQ[2]. After the move he joined the West Country Science Fiction Group and took over the running of the club when founder George Whiting left the country. He was later one of the founders of the Cheltenham Circle. He was also on the Loncon committee and chaired LXICON
He published Spasmodic and Sidereal and was one of the editors of Triode and Con-Science. He ran for TAFF in 1966. He died of a brain tumor in 1967 when only in his late-forties.
He was married to fellow fan Margaret Jones.
- Con-Science (with Terry Jeeves and Eric Bentcliffe)
- Sidereal
- Spasmodic
- Space Times
- Triode (with Terry Jeeves and Eric Bentcliffe)
Awards, Honors and GoHships:
Links
- "Eric Jones, Gentleman of Fandom" by Keith Freeman in Prolapse 8 (August 2007)
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| Person | ????—1967 |
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