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Captain William R. Jones was born February 23, 1839, in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. He was of Welsh descent, his father, the Rev. John G. Jones being born in Brecon, Breconshire, Wales.
 
William R. Jones obtained a rudimentary education in the public grade schools of Catasauqua and through the use of his father's personal library he continued his own education. While attending school the young "Bill" Jones wrecked the schoolhouse, because the teacher had unjustly whipped one of his schoolmates.
 
Owing to his father's ill health he was compelled to commence work during the year of 1849, at the age of ten years. He was apprenticed to the Lehigh Crane Iron Works in the foundry department and later was placed in the machine shop of the company, under the tutelage of Hopkin Thomas. By the time he arrived at the age of fourteen, in 1853, he was receiving the full wages of a regular journeyman machinist.
 
William R. Jones and James Thomas left Catasauqua and for several months they entered the employ of William Millens, who operated a machine shop at Janesville, Luzerne County. In 1856, they moved to Philadelphia, and worked as machinists in the shops of I. P. Morris & Company, where they worked on two large blast engines for the Lehigh Crane Iron Works, and they were sent to Catasauqua with the force of men to erect the same. After the completion of this work William R. Jones returned to Philadelphia. The Panic of 1857 compelled him to search for other employment and he engaged himself to a lumberman by the name of Evans, going with him to Clearfield County. He remained with Mr. Evans, as a farm hand, lumberman and raftsman, until the spring of 1858, when he entered the employ of a farmer named Ricketts. He then was employed as an engineer by the firm of Gibson Bros., near Glen Hope, Clearfield County, and later in the same capacity for William Levis, at Beccarja Mills. In the spring of 1859 he removed to Johnstown, and worked as a machinist for the Cambria Iron Company,under John Fritz, then general superintendent of the company. After working there three months he was offered the position of master-mechanic by Giles Edwards, who was engaged to build a blast-furnace at Chattanooga, Tennessee. He accepted the offer and removed to Chattanooga, where he remained until the out break of the War Between the States, when because of his outspoken loyalty to the Union he was compelled to travel north with his young bride. Returning to Johnstown, in 1861, William R. Jones was again employed by the Cambria Iron Company as a machinist.
 
On April 14, 1861, William R. Jones and Miss Harriet Lloyd were wed at Chattanooga, Tennessee. Four children were born to this union: the eldest Ella, died in 1864; William M. C., was employed by the Edgar Thomson Steel Works as an engineer and surveyor; Cora; and Charles, who died at a young age.
 
On July 31, 1862, William R. Jones enlisted as a private in Co. A, 133rd Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, and on August 5, 1862, he was mustered in for nine months' service and was promoted to corporal. The regiment was incorporated into the 5th Corps of the Army of the Potomac and participated in the Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville campaigns, being mustered out of service on May 24, 1863. He returned to Johnstown, and, as skilled workmen were becoming very scarce, was induced by George Fritz, the general superintendent of the works, to again enter the employ of the Cambria Iron Company. Becoming dissatisfied with remaining at home and impelled by his patriotic impulses, he organized Co. F, 194th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, and was mustered in as captain of that organization on July 20, 1864, for one hundred days' service. On October 10, 1864, three weeks before the regiment's date of mustering out, he was transferred to the 97th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. He served as captain of an independent company made up of men from the 193rd and 194th Regiments, Pennsylvania Volunteers and he served as such until the company was mustered out on June 17, 1865.
 
Upon returning home Captain William R. Jones again entered the employ of the Cambria Iron Company as assistant to George Fritz. While in the employ of the Cambria Iron Company Captain Jones assisted in the construction of the company's Bessemer steel-converting and blooming-mill plants. With the death of George Fritz, in August of 1873, Daniel N. Jones was appointed superintendent over Captain "Bill" Jones. Daniel N. Jones had learned his trade at the Lehigh Crane Iron Works in Catasauqua and he also trained as a master-mechanic under Hopkin Thomas. Captain "Bill" Jones resigned his position at the Cambria Iron Works and left Johnstown. He was then hired as a master-mechanic by the Edgar Thomson Steel Company at Braddock, near Pittsburgh, to help erect their steel works and rail-mill. Upon the completion of the works, the owner, Andrew Carnegie, hired Captain "Bill" Jones as the general manager and afterwards he was given the full charge of the engineering department.
  
During his tenure at the Edgar Thomson Works he built Furnaces A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, and H and I were in the course of erection at the time of his death. The improvements and inventions that Captain William R. Jones produced there made those furnaces the finest in the world. Captain "Bill" Jones' inventions were numerous; the first was patented on June 12, 1876, for "Washers for Ingot Molds." His other important patents were a devise for operating ladles in the Bessemer process and an "Improvements in Hose Couplings," both patented December12, 1876; "Fastenings for Bessemer Converters," December 26, 1876; "Hot Bed for Bending Rails," April 10, 1877; "Process and Apparatus for compressing Ingots while Casting," September, 1878; "Ingot Molds," October 1, 1878; "Cooling Roll Journals and Shafts," July 5, 1881; "Feeding Appliance for Rolling Mills," April 27, 1886; "Art of Manufacturing Railroad Bars," October 12, 1886; "Appliance for Rolls," May 15, 1888; "Apparatus for Removing and Setting Rolls," June 26, 1888; "Housing Caps for Rolls," May 15, 1888; "Roll Housing," August 21, 1888; "Apparatus for removing Ingots from Molds," January 1, 1889. His last and most important invention was a method and a device for mixing metal taken direct from several blast-furnaces, and charged into two large receiving-tanks, each capable of holding eighty tons of molten metal. After the metal is thoroughly mixed it is poured into ladles and taken to the converting-works. The device, known as the "Jones Mixer" was put into operation in September of 1888, and letters of patent were allowed but were not yet issued at the time of his death.
 
Captain William R. Jones was a liberal giver to charities, and widows and families of deceased employees, giving away approximately ten thousand dollars a year. The day after the Johnstown Flood on May 31, 1889, Captain "Bill" Jones took three hundred of his men, at his own expense, to the wrecked city, where they worked for two weeks to help restore the property that had been destroyed.
 
Captain William R. Jones was a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Society of Western Pennsylvania, and the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain. He was a prominent and active member of the G. A. R. and in 1888 was chosen Senior Vice Department Commander of Pennsylvania, and he was a member of the Masonic fraternity. In politics he was an unswerving Republican, but in local politics he was a believer in the man rather than the party. In religious matters he was a liberal, and was not connected with any church organization, and although reared a Presbyterian, he was a supporter of the Methodist Evangelical Church.

On Thursday evening, September 26, 1889, Captain William R. Jones accompanied Superintendent James Gayley to Furnace C, which had not been working properly all day. Several of the employees were tapping the cinder, in an instant a section of about a foot in dimension about seven feet above their heads, fell out, and a stream of hot coal and metal poured upon the group. Captain Jones in his endeavor to escape fell between a stone wall and a cinder car, striking his head on the car. His face and hands were also severely burned. One of the employees at once shut off the blast to the furnace, and the flame ceased. James Tolan, formally of Catasauqua, was in the machine shop nearby, and when he saw Captain "Bill" Jones lying amongst the cinder, he ran in and carried him out. Captain Jones was carried to the company office where he conversed in a dazed manner, while physicians were dressing his burns. He was then taken to the Homeopathic Hospital in Pittsburgh and upon his reaching the hospital his mind commenced to wander, and he remained in a semiconscious state until he died at 10:30 o'clock Saturday night, September 28, 1889.