Henry Walton Jones, Senior

"I, Henry Jones, have been granted an opportunity to find that prize of the centuries, that shining object of man's spiritual yearning since the time of King Arthur – the Holy Grail. From this day I devote my life, my fortune and my scholarly efforts to the fulfilment of this awesome commission."

- Henry Jones' grail diary.

Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Senior was a professor of medieval literature and expert on Grail lore, and the father of archaeologist Indiana Jones.

Early life
Henry Walton Jones was born in Scotland on December 12 in 1872. Jack Williams was his childhood friend, and when he was five year old Jones would go swimming in the loch. He went on to be educated under the tutelage of Helen Margaret Seymour at Oxford University, where he developed friendships with Marcus Brody, Richard Medlicot and Eric Scythe. In addition to Oxford lecturer, Professor Nigel Wolcott was also one of his mentors. Henry graduated from university in 1893 then fell in love with an American woman named Anna. The two married in 1898.



While living together in New Haven, Connecticut, Jones beheld a vision. As he prepared a gloss for a colleague's seminar one April evening, his wine glass rose before his eyes and filled the study with a glow. It transformed into the Holy Grail and a disembodied voice informed him that he would seek the treasure like the knights of old. The next day, firm in the belief he had been given a quest, Jones began his Grail diary and dedicated his life to finding the cup of Jesus Christ. A year later, Jones and Anna had moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where their son Henry Walton Jones, Junior was born on July 1. Their union also produced a daughter, Susie, but illness took her life early. However, a new addition to the Jones family would come in the form of Indiana, an Alaskan Malamute puppy who Henry and Anna introduced to "Junior" in the crib.

In 1900, Jones took a teaching position as professor of medieval literature at Princeton University. In the August of that year, he headed for Massachusetts to attend the conference of the Association of American Medievalists but was disappointed to find his paper on the Grail was met embarrassment, skepticism and ridicule by his peers. Nevertheless, he ignored their encouragement to pursue a subject they didn't unanimously regard as a fairy tale, and continued his research spending time in the summer of 1905 to visit Europe. When he'd returned to America, Jones received a letter from Marcus Brody on November 14 which held the promising news that an abbey in Brittany contained evidence that the artifact was genuine, and made plans for the family to visit France for confirmation the following year. There that July, the professor wrote of his success from an inn in Cantaney but the actions of a rebellious son armed with a slingshot forced the Joneses to find accomodation elsewhere. A monk provided Jones with information that lead the family to Austria-Hungary the following week, where Henry traveled to a castle and learned of a story suggesting a knight of the first crusade over one hundred and fifty years old had found the Grail with his brothers "in a canyon deep in a range of mountains." Logic told him the tale was rubbish but Jones's spiritual side saw it as confirmation of the Grail bestowing eternal life. However, he would not continue his grail diary for another six years.

World lecture tour
By 1908, Jones had produced books which led to him being invited to take a two year world lecture tour. Beginning in May, he would be speaking at various institutes around the world on the topics of the medieval chivalric code and the Holy Grail. Jones brought his wife and son with him, believing the experience to be a once-in-a-lifetime educational opportunity for young Henry Jr. They traveled to England where they hired Miss Seymour as a tutor for Junior. Jones took his family to Egypt, and visited a friend in Tangiers. The family travels also included a safari in British East Africa with Theodore Roosevelt. They then traveled around Europe, including stops in Paris, Vienna and Florence. In 1910, the family traveled to Russia, where through his son's misadventures, Henry got to meet Leo Tolstoy and Greece, where Henry spent time teaching Junior about Greek philosophy. They traveled eastward to India and China, where Junior became ill with Typhoid Fever while Jones was away visiting Fen Yu. Soon after Junior recovered, the Jones family returned home. However, Anna developed scarlet fever which led to her death in May of 1912. She had kept the illness from her husband until all Jones could do was mourn her.

Returning home
Following Anna's death, Henry and his son relocated to the city of Moab, Utah, and Henry began work at the Four Corners University in Las Mesas. Henry's relationship with his son had always been difficult, but Anna's untimely death caused him to withdraw even further into his studies, as he became obsessed with the Holy Grail. The hobby would take the Joneses around the globe once more in search of information related to the artifact.

By 1916, Jones had resumed his teaching duties at Princeton University, while his son attended high school locally. During spring break, Jones took his son to New Mexico to visit relatives. During the trip, Junior and his cousin Frank found a ride into Mexico, and got caught up in the Mexican Revolution. While in Mexico, Henry Jr. ultimately decided to join the Belgian army in order to participate in the war in Europe, which would later beome known as World War I.

During the war, father and son were severely estranged. The senior Jones never received direct communication from his son, though was able to pass messages through third parties, including Miss Seymour in England, and Professor Levi in Paris. When Henry Jr. returned home in 1919, Henry Sr. finally expressed his anger at Jr. for joining the war, and Jr.'s revelation that he had decided to attend the University of Chicago rather than Princeton further angered Henry. His son then left for Chicago, and they had little contact with each other over the years. When Henry fell upon a journal reference to an Indiana Jones working alongside Chicago's Abner Ravenwood, he was hurt by the adoption of their dog's name, but the professor sent a letter care of Ravenwood in hopes of reaching his son nevertheless.

In 1933, Jones was no longer teaching at Princeton University. Ironically, at that time, his son was. However, Jones Sr. once again held a position there by 1935, and his office was receiving mail on Indiana's behalf while in the South Pacific.

Quest for the Holy Grail
"You call this archaeology?"

- Henry Jones, Sr.

In 1938, Jones was hired by wealthy industrialist Walter Donovan to recover the Holy Grail, after Donovan's acquisition of a Grail tablet. Jones traveled to Venice to search for the tomb of a grail knight, believed to be buried in or near the city. He conducted his research in an old library that was formerly a church. Realizing that his associate Elsa Schneider was actually a Nazi spy, Jones mailed his grail diary to his son, hoping to keep its information from Nazi hands. For hiding his diary from her, Jones was then captured by Nazi agents and taken to Castle Brunwald.

Upon learning of this, Henry Jr. (now known even professionally as "Indiana") traveled to the castle and rescued him from his prison cell. However, Indy was soon captured through the deceit of Dr. Schneider. Henry and Indy then discovered that Donovan was also working for the Nazis. Father and son soon escaped from the castle and traveled to Berlin to recover the grail diary, before heading to Hatay via zeppelin and biplane to find the Canyon of the Crescent Moon outside of Iskenderun and stop the Nazis. During a Nazi attack, the senior Jones was captured by the German soldiers and placed in a tank along with the captive Marcus Brody. While Jones managed to defeat a soldier in the tank with a pen, Colonel Vogel apprehended Jones. With the tank running toward a cliff edge, Indy, on horseback, managed to save his father and Brody, and leapt off the vehicle before it plummeted into the ravine below. Henry mournfully looked upon the burning wreckage below, regretting his estrangement and distance from his only son; only to have him approach from behind, battered but alive. Tearfully, Henry Senior embraced Junior in a warm and loving hug for the very first time in his adult life, finally mending the wounds caused so many years before.

Reaching the Grail Temple, the elder Jones was captured along with Indy, Sallah, and Brody. Donovan shot Henry, Sr. to force Indiana to retrieve the Grail in order to save his father's life. Indy passed through the lethal traps of the Grail Temple, and eventually returned with the Grail, which was used to heal Henry's fatal gunshot. After Dr. Schneider caused the temple to collapse and fell to her death in a chasm trying to reclaim the grail, Henry convinced his son to let the grail go in order to save his son, no longer addressing him as Junior, but instead as Indiana. Reconciled and restored as a family, they escaped the temple with Sallah and Marcus. While he told his son that he had found illumination in the quest for the Grail, he inwardly admitted that he should have stayed to remain as the guardian of the grail, but was too weak.

That same year, Jones became a grandfather for the first time with the birth of Mutt Williams.

Later years
Professor Jones later assisted his son in chasing a pair of artifacts stolen from them by the Nazis. His cooperation proved vital in their recovery. By 1943, Jones had retired from teaching medieval literature.

In March 1945, Jones was a lecturer at the annual Holy Grail lore conference held in Glastonbury, England when he was approached by several men interested in the Spear of Longinus. Realizing that Dieterhoffmann and his son, Seigfried were probably Nazis, he wrote to Indiana, who was supervising a dig in Ireland of the potential danger. Indiana arrived, with his assistant Brendan O'Neal. At Wearyall Hill, the elder Jones explained the lore of the spear, and with the help of Edwina Cheltingham (who ordered Jones to not pick leaves from the Holy Thorn), they realized that the Nazis still needed wood from the Holy Thorn to complete construction of the spear. Hoping to question Seigfried alone, Jones invited the young seeker to meet with him at the Chalice Well. Jones interrupted Seigfried who was having a vision of the Spear, and confronted him about Nazi ambitions for the ancient artifact. Kept from escaping by the younger Jones and O'Neal, Seig professed ignorance, which the elder Jones believed. Dieterhoffmann arrived and captured his son's interrogators. Despite his admiration for Jones' scholarship, Dieterhoffmann ordered them to be killed after revealing the details of his plans. The interruption of a tour of schoolgirls led by Cheltingham allowed Jones, his son, and O'Neal to escape - with part of the spear tip. Later that night, the three saw the mysterious blond woman in the small chapel below the Lady Chapel at Glastonbury Abbey, who commanded that the three must guard the spear. Cheltingham arrived with a car and driver, and gave O'Neal a sprig of the true Holy Thorn.

While escaping to Wales, Jones watched his son avoid a bullet aimed at his chest - deflected by the power of the spear tip. The elder Jones tried to impress their driver, Rebecca Stein, with his knowledge of the Welsh countryside, but she shrugged off his advances since she was only interested in Jewish men. After a flat tire forced them to stop, Jones was captured by Dieterhoffmann when their pursuers caught up to them, and he watched in shock as his son was tied to a rock and thrown from the cliff into a lake. Taken to the ferry at Holyhead by the Nazis, he dove into the water to safety when O'Neal's sudden appearance created a diversion. He retrieved a small sailboat, in which he picked up O'Neal and his son, who had tried and failed to also save Stein. He handled the rudder of the sailboat as they crossed over to Ireland, keeping the boat under control when a mine left by a submarine knocked O'Neal overboard. Helping get O'Neal and his son back into the boat, he noticed that the spear tip pointed the way for them to go. They navigated to Ireland, and sailed up a river, where Jones and O'Neal headed off to the dig site, while Indiana left to rescue Stein.

Dry inside the mound, Jones listened to O'Neal's stories about the Spear of Lugh, a legendary Celtic weapon, and recognized similarities between it and the Spear of Longinus, as described in Le Morte d'Arthur, - and realized with O'Neal that the weapons were one in the same. After Indiana returned with Stein, the Nazis also arrived, and the partially assembled spear was completed when the final piece of the spear tip flew from Dieterhoffmann's pocket to attach to the rest of the spear in O'Neal's hand. The Spear flew around the room, killed a Nazi soldier and the cave started to crumble. When O'Neal stepped on a spiral, which shrieked, Jones recognized it as the Stone of Fal. After the spear hit O'Neal in the chest, Jones stepped forward and seized it, preventing it from causing further harm to O'Neal. As Jones held it up, the sunrise of the equinox shone into the mound, illuminating the spear in his hands. Jones watched as the spear tip appeared to bleed, though his son, not a believer, was unable to see it. As Dieterhoffmann fell dead and Seigfried began praying, Jones dropped of the spear when the mound started to collapse again. Jones helped Stein get O'Neal to safety while his son dragged Seigfried out of the cave. Seig, in a moment of rapture, expired, and Jones quoted a line from The Quest of the Holy Grail regarding Seig's passing.



In 1947, he acted as substitute teacher for his son at Barnett College while his son was away, and he had a hatred of "godless" Communists.

Henry Jones died four year later in 1951, bemoaning that Indiana never settled down. Indiana kept a photograph of him on the desk of his Bedford home in 1957. Posthumously, the elder Jones became the father-in-law of Marion Ravenwood. He was grandfather for a second time with the arrival of Indiana's daughter. In 1992, Indiana looked back on his father as a very smart man who was adored by his mother.

Works produced by Henry Jones, Sr.
"Grail lore is his hobby."

- Indiana Jones

Professor Jones was the author of several books in the field of medieval history. The success of two of his books allowed him to travel on a world tour (1908-1910), giving lectures to his fellow historians.

Some of his works include:
 * Search for the Holy Grail (Published before 1913, it may have been read by Dieterhoffmann)
 * The Quest of Gawain (Published before 1913)
 * A guide to medieval arms (Published before the world lecture tour, it was read by Theodore Roosevelt)

One book, which he wrote, but did not publish, was his Grail Diary.

Behind the scenes
Henry Jones, Sr. was portrayed by two actors in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade; Alex Hyde-White played the character briefly during the film's prologue, and his lines were dubbed by Sean Connery, who played the character later in the film. Although Connery is only twelve years older than Harrison Ford, he portrayed Jones Senior as an older man while Ford played a character younger than himself. Connery came up with the idea of Indy and his father both being in a relationship with Elsa, and he originated the line "She talks in her sleep" for Last Crusade. Connery was later asked to reprise the role for a cameo in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but opted out, claiming that he found retirement too enjoyable. In the final film, Indiana looks at a picture of Henry and mentions his death.



Lloyd Owen portrayed a younger version of the character in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, imitating Connery's voice and wearing brown contact lenses during the first production. However, during the second production, the TV movies and the new bridging segments, Owen can be seen with his own blue eyes. Lloyd Owen is actually a year younger than Sean Patrick Flanery, who appeared opposite Owen in two episodes of the series. Apart from the fact that Flanery&mdash;like Ford&mdash;was playing a character younger than himself, it can also be argued that Owen was cast to portray Henry Jones, Sr. at an age corresponding to the nine-year-old Indy as played by Corey Carrier.

The Grail Diary replica mentions that Henry Jones was 45 in an entry dated 1921; however according to the later canon, he would be 49 that year.

Appearances
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 * {{YIJC|Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal}} {{C|"Egypt" segment}} {{Edited Into}} My First Adventure
 * The Mummy's Curse
 * Young Indiana Jones in the Curse of Kha {{Mo}}
 * {{YIJC|Florence, May 1908}} {{Edited Into}} The Perils of Cupid
 * {{YIJC|Paris, September 1908}} {{Edited Into}} Passion for Life
 * {{YIJC|Vienna, November 1908}} {{Edited Into}} The Perils of Cupid
 * {{YIJC|British East Africa, September 1909}} {{Edited Into}} Passion for Life
 * Safari Sleuth
 * {{YIJC|Benares, January 1910}} {{Edited Into}} Journey of Radiance
 * {{YIJC|Peking, March 1910}} {{Edited Into}} Journey of Radiance
 * Indy in China: The Runaway Adventure {{Mo}}
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Titanic Adventure {{Mo}}
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Pirates' Loot {{Mo}}
 * Indiana Jones Jr et le Fantôme du Klondike
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Lost Gold of Durango
 * Indiana Jones Jr et l'Ampoule Radioactive
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Plantation Treasure
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Plantation Treasure comic
 * Indiana Jones Jr et l'Enfant Lama
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Princess of Peril
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Princess of Peril comic
 * Indiana Jones Jr et le Violon du Metropolitan
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Ghostly Riders {{Mo}}
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Circle of Death
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Gypsy Revenge
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Journey to the Underworld
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Ruby Cross
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Secret City
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Mountain of Fire
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Face of the Dragon
 * Young Indiana Jones and the Eye of the Tiger
 * Indiana Jones Jr et le Spectre de Venise
 * Race to Danger
 * {{YIJC|Princeton, February 1916}} {{Edited Into}} Spring Break Adventure
 * {{YIJC|Young Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Jackal}} {{C|"Mexico" segment}} {{Edited Into}} Spring Break Adventure
 * The Mata Hari Affair {{Mo}}
 * {{YIJC|Paris, October 1916}} {{Edited Into}} Demons of Deception {{Mo}}
 * {{YIJC|Young Indiana Jones and the Phantom Train of Doom}} {{Edited Into}} Phantom Train of Doom {{Mo}}
 * {{YIJC|Petrograd, July 1917}} {{Edited Into}} Adventures in the Secret Service {{Mo}}
 * {{YIJC|Palestine, October 1917}} {{Edited Into}} Daredevils of the Desert {{Mo}}
 * {{AYIJ|Tales of Innocence}} {{Mo}}
 * {{YIJC|Istanbul, September 1918}} {{Mo}} {{Edited Into}} Masks of Evil
 * {{YIJC|Young Indiana Jones and the Treasure of the Peacock's Eye}} {{Mo}}
 * {{YIJC|Young Indiana Jones: Travels with Father}} {{Edited Into}} Winds of Change
 * Indiana Jones and the Peril at Delphi {{Mo}}
 * Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants {{Mo}}
 * Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone {{Mo}}
 * Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom junior novel {{Mo}}
 * Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures
 * Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade {{Fa}}
 * Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade novel
 * Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 1989 junior novel
 * Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade 2008 junior novel
 * Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade comic
 * Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings
 * Indiana Jones and the Pyramid of the Sorcerer {{C|Vision}}
 * Indiana Jones and the Mystery of Mount Sinai
 * Indiana Jones and the Army of the Dead {{Mo}}
 * Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny
 * Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine: Prima's Official Strategy Guide {{C|introductory story}}
 * Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull {{Po}}
 * Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull comic {{Mo}}

Non-canon appearances
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 * LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
 * LEGO Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Brick
 * LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues