 In 1867 his mother died, and at the end of 1869 his father left London and returned to Swansea, where he stayed until 1877; and John Viriamu continued his education at the Normal College, Swansea, before entering University College London at the age of 16.He obtained his first degree there at age 19 and in 1874 won a scholarship to the University of Oxford (Balliol college), where he became a friend of Benjamin Jowett and obtained first class honours in both mathematics and physics.In 1881, at the early age of twenty-five, Jones became principal of Firth College in Sheffield – later the University of Sheffield.