The Ronald F. Jones and Eve Jones Collection comprises the personal papers of hotelier Ronald F. Jones and freelance journalist Eve Jones.
The archive is divided into three series, material relating to Ronald and Eve’s separate careers, and their later work together. The material from Ronald’s career is primarily focused on hospitality and hotel management, including managing famed hotels Claridge’s, Turnberry, The Royal Garden and The Athenaeum Hotel. The material from Eve’s career as a journalist specialising in hotels, restaurants and travel includes details of her training and examples of her work. The series relating to their joint work, after Ronald’s retirement from Claridge's, includes material from their hospitality consultancy, lectures on cruise ships and their three books in the series ‘Grand Hotelier’.
The material includes photographs, correspondence, promotional material, press cuttings, menus, awards and working papers.
We are very grateful to Eve Jones for the gift of this collection to the University. The collection is currently being catalogued onto the archive catalogue and can be consulted upon request.
About Ronald F. Jones OBE and Eve Jones
Ronald F Jones began working in hotels in 1941, at the age of 14, as Junior Control Clerk at the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. This was the start of a lifetime career in what he later called ‘the happiness business’. Ronald joined the management training programme for British Transport Hotels (BTH) in 1952. Between 1956 and 1969 Ronald held General Manager positions at five of the BTH hotels, assigned to a different hotel every three years. He had a skill for improving profits and believed the secret to a great hotel is happy staff. Looking after his staff, whilst also expecting the best from them, was a priority throughout his career.
Ronald left the BTH group in 1969 to manage the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington, where he stayed until he moved to the Athenaeum Hotel in 1971. His first task was to oversee the hotel’s year long renovations and he remained General Manager there until 1984.
In 1984 Ronald was offered what was considered to be the top job in hotel management at that time, Director and General Manager of Claridge’s. He accepted and held the role for 10 years up to 1994, remaining as Director until 1995. Ronald was elected Hotelier of the Year in 1988 and was awarded an OBE for services to the hotel industry in 1989.
After Ronald’s retirement from Claridge’s he continued to work as a consultant and mentor, including as Visiting Fellow at Oxford Brookes University. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Derby, and became one of the early Master Innholders. He also served as a director of Dormy House Hotel in Worcestershire from 1995 to 2010.
Eve Jones (formerly Macpherson) worked as a freelance journalist specialising in hotels, restaurants and travel. Similarly to Ronald, she left school at 14 and worked as an office junior. She studied at the London School of Journalism and began her journalism career in 1963 as freelancer and copywriter for ‘Retail Chemist’. She went on to be assistant editor, and later editor, for TR Journal. Under her editorship they won trade journal of the year. In the 1970s, Eve held the editor position for the new ‘Top Secretary’ and ‘Women in Management’ for two years whilst also working with author and trainer Eva Roman; and writing a column on 'Industrial Catering' for the Financial Times. Eve wrote for many more magazines and newspapers; as well as spending a short time as acting Features Editor of ‘Caterer’. She won the Glenfiddich Award for trade press writer of the year twice. Eve gained her Wine and Spirits Education Trust Diploma in the mid 1980s, became a WSET lecturer herself and tutored the wine courses for five years at Marlborough College Summer School. She contributed regularly to the New Orleans Times Picayune, travel sections and occasionally to The Times and Los Angeles Times.
Ronald and Eve met in 1977 when she interviewed Ronald for the first article in a series on Great British Hoteliers in ‘Caterer & Hotelkeeper’. Romance blossomed and they married in 1978. After Ronald’s retirement from Claridge’s in 1994 they worked together as hospitality consultants; and as guest lecturers on cruise ships, including the QE2, Queen Mary, Silversea and Regent.