EVANS, JOHN (1756-1846), surgeon

Name: John Evans
Date of birth: 1756
Date of death: 1846
Spouse: Jane Evans (née Wilson)
Child: William Edward Evans
Child: Thomas Evans
Child: Robert Wilson Evans
Parent: John Evans
Gender: Male
Occupation: surgeon
Area of activity: Medicine
Author: Frederick John North

Born 4 July 1756 at Llwyn-y-groes, Llanymynech, son of John Evans (1723 - 1795), also of Llwyn-y-groes. He was educated at Westminster School, Oxford [matriculated from Jesus 1773, B.A. from S. Alban Hall 1778, M.A. 1779, B.D. 1783 ], and Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. He settled at Shrewsbury, and, after his father's death, at Llwyn-y-groes. He married Jane Wilson of Cheshire, by whom he had five sons and four daughters. He was interested in the study of bees, and gave useful notes in a didactic poem entitled ' The Bee.'

He appears, from the minute book of the Royal Society of Arts, to have republished his father's maps about 1799, but as the sales did not cover the cost of production he sought to take advantage of the Society's offer of a premium to persons who 'should complete and publish an accurate survey of any one country of not less than one inch to the mile.' Although he did not strictly comply with this condition, the Society made an award of forty-five guineas for the maps on the recommendation of its Committee of Polite Arts, 25 March 1802. On 11 August 1802 Shrewsbury papers announced the publication of 'a new and improved impression of Evans Reduced Map of North Wales,' in which 'are inserted several new or intended roads.' From this it would seem that the maps for which Evans received the award were his father's, and that his own contribution amounted to no more than the insertion of roads in the edition of August 1802. He died in October 1846 at the home of his son, archdeacon Evans, at Heversham, Westmorland.

Three of the sons of John Evans may be noticed: ROBERT WILSON EVANS (1789 - 1866), cleric, Fellow and tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge, a prolific author who became archdeacon of Westmorland; THOMAS EVANS (1791 - 1853), a naval officer who saw active service in the Napoleonic wars; and WILLIAM EDWARD EVANS (1801 - 1869), cleric, who became canon of Hereford. They are all commemorated in Williams, Montgomeryshire worthies , and Robert Wilson Evans figures also in the D.N.B.

Author

Frederick John North, (1889 - 1968)

Sources

R. Williams, Montgomeryshire Worthies (1894), 66
Bye-Gones, relating to Wales and the Border Counties, 1878, 39
Royal Society of Arts minute books
[ Foster, Alumni Oxonienses: the members of the University of Oxford ]

Published date: 1959

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