EVANS, EVAN JOHN (1827 - 1891), Hebraist and college tutor

Born at Cribart in north Brecknock. No details of his early education are available, but he began preaching as a member of Troedrhiwdalar Independent church. At Coward College, London, he took a London B.A. in 1850, and afterwards studied in Scotland and in Germany; in 1854 he took a Ph.D. at Heidelberg. There is no record of his ordination, although from 1879 he is styled 'Rev.' From 1864 to 1877 he was tutor in Hebrew and philosophy at Cheshunt, from 1878 to 1887 professor of Hebrew and German at New College, London, and from 188 7 till his death professor of Hebrew and Old Testament there. With W. F. Hurndall he published Pulpit Memorials (1878), and at the time of his death he was engaged upon a critical commentary on the Psalms. He died suddenly, 14 January 1891, and was buried at Hampstead 19 January To outward seeming, thus, he had little to do with Welsh life - a note on him in Y Dysgedydd (1891, 79) says that his failure to get a tutorship at Brecon Independent College had deeply embittered him, and it is known that he deprecated the perpetuation of Welsh. But he was interested in the provision of secondary and higher education in Wales. In October 1878 he was appointed joint secretary with Sir Lewis Morris, of the University College at Aberystwyth, was re-elected to that office in October 1881, but resigned it in February 1884, though he retained his membership of the Council. He appears to have been rather a difficult man, and his resignation, says a contemporary letter, 'was accepted with alacrity.'

Author

• Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, (1881 - 1969)

Sources

• Information from Somerset House, from Mrs E. Morgan Humphreys (including a memorandum by his widow),
• from New College (through the Rev. Prof. Bleddyn Jones Roberts),
• and from the Rev. C. E. Surman
• The Thomas Charles Edwards Letters (Aberystwyth 1952) (index),
• and further information from Mr. T. I. Ellis

Works

• Evan John Evans, William Flavel Hurndall, Pulpit memorials: photographs and specimen sermons of twenty Congregational ministers, with brief memoirs by several friends (London 1878)

Additional Links

• Wikidata: Q20733027

Published date: 1959

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/