Toby Jones has expressed his delight after discovering that his late father's long-held belief about having Indian heritage was accurate. The actor, known for his Bafta-winning role in The Detectorists and the ITV drama Mr Bates Versus the Post Office, traced his family tree for the BBC programme Who Do You Think You Are? and found that his great-great-great grandmother Mary was described as Indo-British on her 1821 marriage certificate, indicating one of her parents was Indian.
A Father's Romantic Notion Confirmed
Toby revealed that his father, character actor Freddie Jones, always insisted the family had Indian roots, a claim the family often teased him about. “My dad was absolutely convinced he had some Indian ancestry which we all slightly took the mickey out of, because he was a romantic,” Toby explained. “He loved other cultures and the idea that he might have some other ancestry, I think would have been absolutely fantastic for him.”
Growing up, Toby and his two brothers would joke about Freddie's “romantic” notion. “He felt a kinship with Indian culture and we’d all take that with a pinch of salt and think that he was projecting it because that’s what he wanted to happen,” Toby added.
Journey from Stoke-on-Trent to Northern India
In the episode airing Thursday, Toby admits he knew nothing of his father's side beyond his grandparents. He discovered that his great-great grandmother Jane was born in India, prompting him to return to the country he last visited as an 18-year-old in the 1980s. His travels take him from the potteries of Stoke-on-Trent, where his father grew up, to Northern India, following the footsteps of his great-great grandfather John Jones.
John Jones was a private in the British army who married Jane in 1855 in Meerut, near Delhi. Military records show John enlisted in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and a memoir by an officer describes his 500-mile journey on foot from Calcutta to his northern station. In 1857, John was among the first troops sent to quell the 1857 Uprising against the British East India Company, now known as the First War of Indian Independence, which claimed an estimated 800,000 Indian lives.
A DNA Revelation
Toby, 59, underwent a DNA test for the programme, learning he is 87% English and 1% Indian. “Well, I’m very proud of that 1%,” he declared. “I know for a fact that it was a big part of my father’s sense of himself.” He noted that discovering his father's theory was correct felt “very moving.” “That was the most thrilling thing I found out,” he added. “It was always a bit of a joke in our family that my father couldn’t prove anything, but he constantly claimed a connection with India.”
Freddie Jones died in 2019. “I’m a little sad that I can’t go back to him with hard scientific fact but I also know he wouldn’t have cared anyway - he knew who he was - and I’m really enthusiastic to share it with my own children,” Toby said.
Reflecting on the Past
After filming, Toby said he had much to process. “It’s amazing to have the past tilled over like this and to meet, even obliquely, these people who I knew nothing about.” He also discovered sadness in the story: Jane, aged 31 in 1860, had been widowed, and all four of her children from her first marriage likely died in childhood, at least two from cholera. Toby learned that Jane's father, Samuel Burns, was in the military, and his mixed-race wife Mary was “most likely” the daughter of a British father and an Indian mother.
Toby Jones’ episode of Who Do You Think You Are? airs on Thursday 16 July at 9pm on BBC1.
