• Name: Jones, Louisa
• Gender: Female
• Birth Date: August  1773
• Death Date:
• Occupation: housekeeper
• Occupation: foster mother

Miss Louisa Jones, who has occasional appearances prior to 1797, was a friend of Godwin’s sister Hannah (See Janet Todd, Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 437n), who went to keep house at the Polygon and act as foster mother to Fanny and Mary after Wollstonecraft's death. Her father was a linen draper in Bath, and she may have become acquainted with Hannah through the trade.

According to Marshall, John Arnot, one of Godwin’s early disciples, fell in love with Louisa (Marshall, p. 196). Marshall also suggests that Godwin himself did not see her as fitted for the role as a mother and companion to himself, though she was willing (Marshall, p. 247). Biographers suggest that Jones drops out of the diary when she runs off with Dyson (Locke pp. 186 – 187), but is not a plausible way of reading the confused letters from Jones to Godwin over her departure - written while she still seems to be in his house. Indeed, on 4 July 1801, Louisa Jones was married at St Dionis Backchurch, London, to Henry Dibbin. And on 7 August, the couple call on Godwin. Godwin was angry at their marriage and denied Louisa Jones/Dibbin all further access to the children.

Against that account must be set the fact that in October and November 1800 John Arnot writes to Godwin saying that 'I am sorry for what you tell me of Dyson and Louisa Jones. Can you give me their address?' MS. Abinger c.6, fol. 52r (and repeated almost verbatim in MS. Abinger c. 6, fols 82-3. It is possible that the relationship with Dibbin is subsequent to one with Dyson - or that Godwin was misinformed or misled. Godwin evidently responded to Arnot that 'Louisa in (?is) some sort of bird of passage' according to a slightly later letter from Arnot. MS. Abinger, c. 6, fol 121r: 4 Jan. 1801.

The early Miss Jones could be references to Margaret Jones, but Louisa seems more likely (as she was the special friend of Hannah Godwin, who would have recommended her to Godwin after Wollstonecraft's death). Louisa certainly had sisters (Elizabeth, Frances and Margaret) although the first two seem to have resided in Bath, at least in 1798. However, in one of her last notes, concerned with ending her employment at Godwin's, she refers to Margaret coming to stay the night, and asks whether he would prefer that she didn't. There is a late reference in August 1834 to a Miss Jones who visited Godwin with a companion (Lobrot), bringing him fourteen nectarines, which Godwin considered profligate. Margaret Jones ran a school in Greenwich, and subsequently in Cresswell Park Blackheath with Marie Ann Lobrot (ten years her senior). In 1836, an advertisement appeared in the Morning Post soliciting contributions to save the two women from destitution. Mrs L. Dibbin subscribed £5.

There are several letters surviving between Jones and Godwin (the first and second during his trips to Bath and Bristol, and a group in relation to Jones leaving Godwin's employment.

• MS. Abinger c. 4, fols. 8-9: 9 Mar. 1798
• MS. Abinger c. 15, fols. 22-30: n.d.
• MS. Abinger c. 6, fol. 52r: 10 Oct. 1800
• MS. Abinger c. 6, fols. 82-3: 26 Nov. 1800
• MS. Abinger, c. 6, fol. 121r: 4 Jan. 1801
• MS. Abinger c. 43, fols. 39-40: [29]-30 Aug. [1834]
• Janet ToddMary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life (2000, paperback edn. London: Phoenix Press, 2001)
• Marshall
• Locke
• StClair

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.