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Harold Jones (murderer)

British murderer (1906–1971)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 10, 2026
Entity authorityQ5661304 ↗
Source-derived summary

Harold Jones (11 January 1906 – 2 January 1971) was a Welsh child murderer who killed two preadolescent girls in Monmouthshire, Wales, in 1921, when he was aged 15.

Jones was acquitted of the murder of his first victim, eight-year-old Freda Burnell, at Monmouthshire Assizes on 21 June 1921. Seventeen days later, he murdered an 11-year-old neighbour named Florence Little. Jones pleaded guilty to Little's murder and also confessed to having murdered Burnell at his second trial.

As Jones was under the age of 16 when he committed the murders, he escaped execution for his crimes, instead being sentenced to be detained at His Majesty's pleasure on 1 November 1921. He was released from HM Prison Wandsworth in 1941, later marrying and fathering a child. Jones died of bone cancer in 1971 at the age of 64.

Early life

Harold Jones was born in the Welsh colliery town of Abertillery, Monmouthshire, in January 1906, the eldest of four children born into a poor family. His father, Phillip, worked as a coal miner and his mother was a housewife. Jones and his siblings attended a local council school where he was regarded as a popular and exemplary pupil, showing a particular flair for sports, and holding aspirations to become a professional boxer.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Harold Jones (murderer)” as british murderer (1906–1971). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1906, 1971, 1921, 1941—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1906-01-11. The account is most persuasive where Harold, Jones and murderer can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as british murderer (1906–1971). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5661304. VIAF identifies the subject as 122364493. The Library of Congress control number is nb2010014700. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1906, 1971, 1921 and 1941.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Harold Jones (murderer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.