SIR JOHN EVANS, K.C.B. 1823—1908. 
THE death of Sir John Evans has removed from the Royal Society one who 
for forty years has been among its most conspicuous members, who for half of 
that long period filled the office of Treasurer, and who from first to last has 
taken an active and useful part in the general business of the Society. His 
eminent capacity in the conduct of affairs, the unremitting devotion with 
which he employed that talent in the Society’s interest, and the genial 
courtesy which marked his intercourse with the Fellows have given him a 
strong claim on their grateful remembrance. 
He came of a stock wherein both science and literature had been cultivated. 
His grandfather, Lewis Evans (1755—1827), the first mathematical master in 
the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, studied astronomy and was elected 
into the Royal Society in 1823. His father, the Rev. Dr. Arthur Benoni 
Evans (1781—1854) was headmaster of the Grammar School at Market 
Bosworth and a prolific writer, who published many poems and theological 
works, together with a book on ‘ Leicestershire Words, Phrases, and Proverbs’ 
(1848). His maternal grandmother belonged to a Huguenot branch of an 
old French family, and from her he perhaps inherited his lightness of heart. 
He was born on 17th November, 1823, at Britwell Court, Burnham, 
Buckinghamshire, and was educated under his father at Market Bosworth. 
Although entered for matriculation at Brasenose College, Oxford, he did not. 
eventually proceed to the University. His education, however, under the 
paternal roof had been excellent. He had acquired such a knowledge of 
Latin and such an acquaintance with classic authors as remained a life-long 
possession to him. Every now and then, in the course of conversation, some 
happy phrase or line from a Roman poet would occur to him, with which he 
would light up and enforce the remarks he was making. His archeological 
writings indicate how diligently he sought in ancient literature such references 
as might illustrate the early history of mankind. His father’s care in his 
upbringing was further shown by his being sent for a short time to Germany, 
in order to gain some facility in speaking the language. ; 
Instead of entering the University, he, in 1840, at the age of seventeen, 
embarked on a commercial career. His maternal uncle, John Dickinson, the 
head and founder of the well-known firm of paper-makers of that name, and 
a man of scientific tastes, who became a Fellow of the Royal Society, invited 
him to join the staff at the paper-making works of Nash Mills, near Hemel 
Hempstead. John Evans found there the settled home in which he lived 
almost up to the end of his life and which became more widely known as the 
abode of the active and enthusiastic antiquary, numismatist, and geologist 
than as the headquarters of a commercial company. Having married his 
cousin, the daughter of the head of the firm, he was, in 1851, admitted as one 
