This year Jones & Murphy celebrates 70 years of providing clinically outstanding eyecare in Carmarthenshire. Founded in 1949 by Mr Dewi Jones, then joined by Mr Adrian Murphy in 1967 and more latterly by Dr Adrian Jones in 2006, Jones & Murphy continues at the forefront of community focused eyecare and high quality eyewear.
A HISTORY OF JONES & MURPHY OPTOMETRISTS & OPTICIANS
Mr Dewi Jones became an apprentice pharmacist in Trimsaran, and duly became a member of the Pharmaceutical Society. During World War Two, he was stationed at Pembrey, in the Munitions Factory there, and worked as a chemist, supervising the production of nitroglycerine and the dangerous job of supervising the rolling of liquid nitroglycerine down dark tunnels to be collected for the manufacture bombs and shells. During his time at Pembrey, he embarked on a distance learning qualification to become a fellow of the Spectacle Makers Company, and hence received the qualification FSMC. He subsequently was employed by Walter Lloyd & Son Chemist in Lammas Street, Carmarthen. In 1948 the NHS was established, the following year he opened an optical practice at 10 Mansel Street, next door to Walter Lloyd. Dewi was a very proud Welshman and care for his patients meant that he had a catchment area of 30-40 miles from the practice. He was extremely popular and kept up to date by attending many conferences and lectures throughout the United Kingdom.
In 1967, he employed Adrian Murphy, as an assistant, and in 1971, they joined together in a partnership as Jones & Murphy Opticians. This continued until 1994 when Dewi was retired at the age of 89. Mr Murphy was a trail blazer in his own right, one of the first practitioners to embrace contact lenses, he fitted lenses made by taking a mould of the eye with dental impression material – ouch!! Always clinically minded, in the late 1990’s Mr Murphy invested a significant amount in the latest technology providing computerised perimetry and one of the first retinal cameras in the area.
In 2007 Dr Adrian Jones joined the practice, initially as a part time locum, then as a partner and now as the owner. Dr Jones has a clinical PhD in Glaucoma and a Higher Diploma in Glaucoma diagnosis and management, he spent almost 10 years in the glaucoma clinics at Bristol Eye Hospital and the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff. As the first optometrist in Wales to gain independent prescriber status, Dr Jones is able to diagnose and treat many more eye diseases that would otherwise need to be seen at a hospital.