How shonky undertaker Rev Charles Jones conned Melbourne
When shonky undertaker Charles Jones got fed up paying religious ministers to officiate at his funerals, he simply registered his own church with himself as its preacher to save costs. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST.
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‘Reverend’ Charles Jones was one of the most deranged businesspeople to have ever operated in Melbourne. He called himself “The Bishop of the Collingwood Flat”. His numerous schemes and scams were conducted with such a dose of twisted humour, that his career as a conman could easily provide enough subject material for an entire comedy series.
Jones is the subject of the first of a five-part miniseries on old Melbourne’s craftiest conmen for the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters.
Rev Charles Jones was born in Northern England in 1849, his parents migrating to Australia the following year. His father, Charles Edwin Jones, would go on to be one of Victoria’s most controversial political figures.
Rev Charles Jones was the eldest child, and by his early 20s, was married with kids and running his own tar-paving business in Abbotsford. The business went bust, so he opened other tar-paving businesses under the names of his wife and children. His rock-crushing machinery had been sold by the bankruptcy trustee, so Jones commenced creating his own gravel by blowing up a quarry close to the Abbotsford Convent. He was so careless with safety that the Collingwood Council banned him from blasting, but this didn’t matter to Jones. For over a decade, residents of the Convent lived in fear of their lives as boulders and stones flew over the Convent walls.
In the 1880s, Jones diversified his business, branching out into undertaking. His firm, ‘Jones & Sons Asphalting and Undertaking’, shook up the funeral industry by guaranteeing to undercut the price of any other funeral director in town. A decrease in price resulted in a decrease in quality of service, but quality was never a major priority for Jones.
In 1888, he gave notice of his own death in the newspaper classifieds. Several days later he launched an advertising campaign alerting the public that he was still alive and that there were great bargains to be had.
By the late 1880s, Jones & Sons had become one of the biggest undertaking businesses in town. There were outlets in most of the main suburbs of Melbourne.
It was at this time that something clicked in Jones’ brain and he cooked up a not particularly well-planned scheme. He set up multiple phony business shopfronts around Melbourne and used them to fraudulently order goods on credit. He then resold the items or repurposed them for use in his legitimate funeral and asphalting businesses. The goods were never paid for. It all caught up with him in 1891 and he was sent to prison for three years.
Jones hated paying religious ministers to officiate at his funerals. He thought they were overpriced and that their services shouldn’t be compulsory. His way around this? He registered his own religion: ‘The Reformed Church of England’. He then registered himself as the church’s religious minister. This enabled him to conduct the religious funeral services himself. He also began advertising his services as a marriage celebrant. He registered his family home in Abbotsford as the church, and when authorities investigated his congregation, a high percentage were found to either be family members or employees of his business. The church was eventually deregistered under a technicality: the front door of his house was too small to satisfy regulations.
In 1911 he started a new business in a delicensed Fitzroy hotel. Signs which were affixed to the building give an insight into the broad range of services offered: “Motorist College, Teacher of Motoring and Aviation”, “Undertaker and Matrimonial Club”, “Rev Charles T Jones. Marriages Solemnised. Marry Early and Often!” Interestingly, he didn’t know how to drive a car, had never been in a plane, and was no longer accredited to celebrate marriages.
The enterprise was shut down after he was sued by former students who complained that he had no operational vehicles, and no driving instructor. When they asked for a refund, he offered instead to find them a marriage partner for £1. In another trial he was convicted for counselling an underage couple to make a fraudulent statement in order to get married. He was convicted for imposition but somehow got away with a £10 fine.
Jones relocated to Sydney in 1912 and opened a training school specialising in hairdressing, motor-driving, wireless telegraphy, film projector-operation etc. Other signs affixed to the premises stated: “Missing friends, Unclaimed Money £77,000,000” and “Marriages, Introductions etc.” When asked by police where he sourced the models for his hairdressing school, he told them “Oh, just the deadbeats in the park”. The Truth newspaper commented that “There was no instructor, but the pupils paid a fee of two guineas, and were let loose on the deadbeats”.
He was convicted in Sydney in 1916 for two counts of unlawfully celebrating a marriage. The couples were underage, and he was not qualified to marry them anyway. He was sent to prison for 4 years.
When he was released in 1920, he was 70 years of age. What happened to him after this is a complete mystery. I’m sure it would have been both tragic and amusing though.
Michael Shelford is a Melbourne writer, researcher, and creator and guide for Melbourne Historical Crime Tours.
Listen to the interview with Michael Shelford now in today’s new free episode of the In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters on Apple/iTunes, Spotify, web or on your favourite platform.
Listen to previous episodes with Michael Shelford including the colourful life of crim “Big Squizzy” Claude Taylor, older brother to underworld king “Squizzy” Taylor, and Madame Reprah, the mysterious South Yarra mind reader who made a fool of Victoria’s police chief.
And check out In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday to see more stories from Victoria’s past.