youthful brawl), Christmas Evans was a remarkably powerful preacher. To a natural aptitude for this calling he united a nimble mind and an inquiring spirit; his character was simple, his piety humble and his faith fervently evangelical. For a time he came under Sandemanian influence, and when the Wesleyans entered Wales he took the Calvinist side in the bitter controversies that were frequent from 1800 to 1810. His chief characteristic was a vivid and affluent imagination, which absorbed and controlled all his other powers, and earned for him the name of “the Bunyan of Wales.”
His works were edited by Owen Davies in 3 vols. (Carnarvon, 1895–1897). See the Lives by D. R. Stephens (1847) and Paxton Hood (1883).
EVANS, EVAN HERBER (1836–1896), Welsh Nonconformist divine, was born on the 5th of July 1836, at Pant yr Onen near Newcastle Emlyn, Cardiganshire. As a boy he saw something of the “Rebecca Riots,” and went to school at the neighbouring village of Llechryd. In 1853 he went into business, first at Pontypridd and then at Merthyr, but next year made his way to Liverpool. He decided to enter the ministry, and studied arts and theology respectively at the Normal College, Swansea, and the Memorial College, Brecon, his convictions being deepened by the religious revival of 1858–1859. In 1862 he succeeded Thomas Jones as minister of the Congregational church at Morriston near Swansea. In 1865 he became pastor of Salem church, Carnarvon, a charge which he occupied for nearly thirty years despite many invitations to English pastorates. In 1894 he became principal of the Congregational college at Bangor. He died on the 30th of December 1896. He was chairman of the Welsh Congregational Union in 1886 and of the Congregational Union of England and Wales in 1892; and by his earnest ministry, his eloquence and his literary work, especially in the denominational paper Y Dysgedydd, he achieved a position of great influence in his country.
See Life by H. Elvet Lewis.
EVANS, SIR GEORGE DE LACY (1787–1870), British soldier, was born at Moig, Limerick, in 1787. He was educated at Woolwich Academy, and entered the army in 1806 as a volunteer, obtaining an ensigncy in the 22nd regiment in 1807. His early service was spent in India, but he exchanged into the 3rd Light Dragoons in order to take part in the Peninsular War, and was present in the retreat from Burgos in 1812. In 1813 he was at Vittoria, and was afterwards employed in making a military survey of the passes of the Pyrenees. He took part in the campaign of 1814, and was present at Pampeluna, the Nive and Toulouse; and later in the year he served with great distinction on the staff in General Ross’s Bladensburg campaign, and took part in the capture of Washington and of Baltimore and the operations before New Orleans. He returned to England in the spring of 1815, in time to take part in the Waterloo campaign as assistant quartermaster-general on Sir T. Picton’s staff. As a member of the staff of the duke of Wellington he accompanied the English army to Paris, and remained there during the occupation of the city by the allies. He was still a substantive captain in the 5th West India regiment, though a lieutenant-colonel by brevet, when he went on half-pay in 1818. In 1830 he was elected M.P. for Rye in the Liberal interest; but in the election of 1832 he was an unsuccessful candidate both for that borough and for Westminster. For the latter constituency he was, however, returned in 1833, and, except in the parliament of 1841–1846, he continued to represent it till 1865, when he retired from political life. His parliamentary duties did not, however, interfere with his career as a soldier. In 1835 he went out to Spain in command of the Spanish Legion, recruited in England, and 9600 strong, which served for two years in the Carlist War on the side of the queen of Spain. In spite of great difficulties the legion won great distinction on the battlefields of northern Spain, and Evans was able to say that no prisoners had been taken from it in action, that it had never lost a gun or an equipage, and that it had taken 27 guns and 1100 prisoners from the enemy. He received several Spanish orders, and on his return in 1839 was made a colonel and K.C.B. In 1846 he became major-general; and in 1854, on the breaking-out of the Crimean War, he was made lieutenant-general and appointed to command the 2nd division of the Army of the East. At the battle of the Alma, where he received a severe wound, his quick comprehension of the features of the combat largely contributed to the victory. On the 26th of October he defeated a large Russian force which attacked his position on Mount Inkerman. Illness and fatigue compelled him a few days after this to leave the command of his division in the hands of General Pennefather; but he rose from his sick-bed on the day of the battle of Inkerman, the 5th of November, and, declining to take the command of his division from Pennefather, aided him in the long-protracted struggle by his advice. On his return invalided to England in the following February, Evans received the thanks of the House of Commons. He was made a G.C.B., and the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. In 1861 he was promoted to the full rank of general. He died in London on the 9th of January 1870.
EVANS, SIR JOHN (1823–1908), English archaeologist and geologist, son of the Rev. Dr A. B. Evans, head master of Market Bosworth grammar school, was born at Britwell Court, Bucks, on the 17th of November 1823. He was for many years head of the extensive paper manufactory of Messrs John Dickinson at Nash Mills, Hemel Hempstead, but was especially distinguished as an antiquary and numismatist. He was the author of three books, standard in their respective departments: The Coins of the Ancient Britons (1864); The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain (1872, 2nd ed. 1897); and The Ancient Bronze Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland (1881). He also wrote a number of separate papers on archaeological and geological subjects—notably the papers on “Flint Implements in the Drift” communicated in 1860 and 1862 to Archaeologia, the organ of the Society of Antiquaries. Of that society he was president from 1885 to 1892, and he was president of the Numismatic Society from 1874 to the time of his death. He also presided over the Geological Society, 1874–1876; the Anthropological Institute, 1877–1879; the Society of Chemical Industry, 1892–1893; the British Association, 1897–1898; and for twenty years (1878–1898) he was treasurer of the Royal Society. As president of the Society of Antiquaries he was an ex officio trustee of the British Museum, and subsequently he became a permanent trustee. His academic honours included honorary degrees from several universities, and he was a corresponding member of the Institut de France. He was created a K.C.B. in 1892. He died at Berkhamsted on the 31st of May 1908.
His eldest son, Arthur John Evans, born in 1851, was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and Göttingen. He became fellow of Brasenose and in 1884 keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. He travelled in Finland and Lapland in 1873–1874, and in 1875 made a special study of archaeology and ethnology in the Balkan States. In 1893 he began his investigations in Crete, which have resulted in discoveries of the utmost importance concerning the early history of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean (see Aegean Civilization and Crete). He is a member of all the chief archaeological societies in Europe, holds honorary degrees at Oxford, Edinburgh and Dublin, and is a fellow of the Royal Society. His chief publications are: Cretan Pictographs and Prae-Phoenician Script (1896); Further Discoveries of Cretan and Aegean Script (1898); The Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult (1901); Scripta Minoa (1909 foll.); and reports on the excavations. He also edited with additions Freeman’s History of Sicily, vol. iv.
EVANS, OLIVER (1755–1819), American mechanician, was born at Newport, Delaware, in 1755. He was apprenticed to a wheelwright, and at the age of twenty-two he invented a machine for making the card-teeth used in carding wool and cotton. In 1780 he became partner with his brothers, who were practical millers, and soon introduced various labour-saving appliances which both cheapened and improved the processes of flour-milling. Turning his attention to the steam engine, he employed steam at a relatively high pressure, and the plans of his invention which he sent over to England in 1787 and in 1794–1795 are said
