EVANS, LEWIS (1755–1827), mathematician, son of the Rev. Thomas Evans of Bassaleg, Monmouthshire, was born in 1755 (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886, p. 435). He was matriculated at Merton College, Oxford, 16 Dec. 1774, but left the university without a degree. In 1777 he was ordained by the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, his first curacy being that of Ashbury, Berkshire, where he served until 6 July 1778. He then commenced residence as curate of Compton, Berkshire, and continued there until 1788, in which year he received institution to the vicarage of Froxfield, Wiltshire. He held the living until his death. In 1799 he was appointed first mathematical master at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in which post he laboured until 1820. In addition to a competent knowledge of various sciences, he had turned much of his attention, in the latter part of his life, to astronomy. He possessed several valuable instruments, and for many years employed himself as a skilful and successful observer, having his own private observatory on Woolwich Common. To the ‘Philosophical Magazine’ he contributed the following dissertations: ‘An improved Demonstration of Newton's Binomial Theorem on Fluxional Principles’ (vol. xxiv.); ‘Observations of α Polaris for determining the North Polar Distance of that Star at the beginning of 1813’ (vol. xliii.); ‘Tables of the Sun's Altitude and Zenith Distance, for every day in the year’ (vol. lvi.); ‘The Solar Eclipse, observed on 7th Sept. 1820’ (vol. lvi.) Evans was elected F.R.S. 29 May 1823, and was also fellow of the Astronomical Society. He died at Froxfield 19 Nov. 1827 (Gent. Mag. vol. xcvii. pt. ii. p. 570). By his wife, Ann Norman, he was father of Thomas Simpson Evans [q. v.], and of Arthur Benoni Evans [q. v.]
[Information from John Evans, esq., F.R.S.; Royal Kalendars; Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society of London, i. 53.]
EVANS, PHILIP (1645–1679), jesuit, a native of Monmouthshire, studied in the college at St. Omer, and entered the Society of Jesus 7 Sept. 1665. Having completed his noviceship at Watten and made his higher studies and theology at the English College, Liége, he was ordained priest, and sent to the mission in North Wales in 1675. Being a marked victim of the Oates plot persecution he was seized four years later at the house of his friend and patron, Christopher Turberville de Skene, esq., committed to prison, tried at the spring assizes 1679, condemned to death as a traitor for his priesthood, and executed at Cardiff on 22 July 1679. John Lloyd, a secular priest, suffered at the same time, and on the same account.
‘Short Memorandums’ upon their death appeared at London in 1679. There is a portrait of Evans engraved by Alexander Voet in Matthias Tanner's ‘Brevis Relatio felicis Agonis quem pro Religione Catholica gloriose subierunt aliquot e Societate Jesu Sacerdotes,’ Prague, 1683. Another portrait is in the print of Titus Oates in the pillory.
[Florus Anglo-Bavaricus, pp. 178–81; Challoner's Missionary Priests (1742), ii. 414; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, No. 15720; Granger's Biog. Hist. of England, 5th ed. v. 95; Foley's Records, v. 882–91, vii. 232 (with portrait); Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Oliver's Jesuit Collections, p. 86; Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 320; Kobber's Martyrer and Bekenner der Gesellschaft Jesu in England.]
EVANS, RHYS or RICE (b. 1607), fanatic, usually known by his adopted name of Arise Evans, was born in Merionethshire, ‘in the parish of Llangluin, a mile from the Bearmouth’ (Narration of the Life, Calling, and Visions of Arise Evans, p. 1). Disinherited by his father, Evans was bound apprentice to a tailor, first at Chester and afterwards at Wrexham. In 1629 he came to London to practise his trade, and heard a sermon at Blackfriars in March 1633, which led him to discover his own gifts of interpretation and prophecy. He began at once to see visions and reveal them; warned the king of the destruction which was coming on the kingdom, and declared to the Earl of Essex that he should one day be general of all England, and execute justice upon the court (ib. pp. 13, 25, 28). In 1635 Evans married, but continuing to prophesy was for three years imprisoned. In 1643 he disputed against the anabaptists, and three years later attacked the presbyterians. Throughout, he says, he maintained the church of England to be the true church. Thomas Edwards refers to him in his ‘Gangræna,’ and classes him with the independents, but the independents themselves considered Evans as a decoy sent to catch them, and tried to keep him from their assemblies (Gangræna, ii. 173; Narration, pp. 53–9). In 1647 Evans was arrested on the charge that he had declared himself to be Christ, and was for some time imprisoned in Newgate (Narration, pp. 60–71). After the execution of Charles I he became notorious by publishing pamphlets urging the restoration of Charles II. Directly the army expelled the parliament he petitioned Cromwell ‘to set up the king upon his throne’ (16 May 1653), and his bold utterances and confident anticipations of a restoration fill the news-letters
