Percy
Jones came from a musical family.
His father was bandmaster of the St Augustine's Orphanage Band at the
age of 16 and, in 1925-27, in charge of the Geelong West Band. He taught
music at both Geelong Grammar and Geelong College.
Three of his five children had musical careers. Dorothea was a singer,
Basil a violinist and Director of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music
and his eldest son was destined to become Australia's foremost liturgical
musician.
All of Jones's studies for the priesthood were undertaken, from 1930,
in Rome, with the intention of fitting him to take responsibility for
music in the Melbourne Diocese. His musical talents had already attracted
the attention of Percy Grainger at the Conservatorium. Ordained in 1937,
he was appointed Music Director at St Patrick's Cathedral in 1942. He
occupied this position for 31 years. From 1950 to 1972 he was also Vice-Director
of the Conservatorium, a title he especially enjoyed using in conjunction
with his clerical collar.
During the 1940s, Jones began collecting Australian folksongs. Without
a tape-recorder this involved transcribing words and music from live
performance. Click Go the Shears and Botany Bay were thus collected
and published in Australian Bush Songs by Jones and Burl Ives. In 1942,
Jones also published his Australian Hymnal, later replaced by his Pius
X Hymnal.
During the 1950s, he was a driving force in the establishment of the
Victorian Schools Music Association, the National Music Camp Association
and the Australian Youth Orchestra.
During the 1960s, he was a member of the Liturgy Commission of the
Second Vatican Council. On his retirement in 1979, he was made a Foundation
Fellow of the Melbourne College of Divinity, in recognition of his contribution
to the Ecumenical Movement.
Percy Jones was also, in the words of his biographer Donald Cave, part
of "an academically ecumenical group noted for the love of good humour,
good conversation, and, to the scandal of not a few, good wine".
