Ronald Armstrong-Jones

Welsh barrister and soldier

Major Ronald Owen Lloyd Armstrong Jones, (né Jones; 18 May 1899 – 27 January 1966) was a British barrister and soldier. He was the father of Antony Armstrong Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon, and father in law of Princess Margaret, younger daughter of George VI.

Born Ronald Owen Lloyd Armstrong Jones in Ilford, Essex, He had two sisters, Elaine Margaret Wauchope (1895–1965) and Gwendolen Jane Buckley (1905–1985), who married Sir Denys Buckley.

During the First World War, Armstrong Jones was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant While at Oxford he distinguished himself as a rower, helping the Magdalen crew to win the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley in 1921. In 1936, Armstrong Jones served as High Sheriff of Caernarvonshire. During the Second World War he returned to the army and served as a Major in the King's Royal Rifle Corps; he was invalided out in 1945, after serving as Deputy Judge Advocate to Montgomery's staff in Normandy and being appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1945 New Year Honours in recognition of his service. During the war, his home, Stream House at Henley Park, was requisitioned to the British Army. He took silk in 1954. The following year, he was appointed a Lord Chancellor's Legal Visitor, whose function is to visit mental patients in hospitals and at home to ensure they are properly cared for and money allocated by the Court of Protection is properly applied and managed for their care.

Armstrong Jones was married three times. Firstly, on 22 July 1925, to Anne Messel (8 February 1902 – July 1992), with whom he had two children: and returned to his home, Plas Dinas, in Caernarfon, before Christmas. He died there in late January, at the age of 66.