Jones, Sarah

Sarah Jones is a name which occurs more than once in the period spanning the English Civil Wars and Interregnum, associated with very different types of writing and diverse geographical locations. A Mrs. Sara[h] Jones of Lambeth was an identified member of the semi-Separatist church in Southwark founded by Henry Jacob, and has been linked to Congregationalist/Separatist tracts published in the 1640s. A Sarah Jones (supposed to be “of Bristol?”) wrote to the “dear lambs” of an inferred proto-Quaker community in 1650. It seems likely that there were at least two women of this name writing from differing ecclesiological viewpoints. About one we know some biographical information; of the other, next to nothing—although her epistle This is Lights appearance in the Truth was a significant marker in the development of radical religious movements at the time of the Civil Wars and Interregnum.