Evans, George Eyre, 1857-1939

Person

Evans, George Eyre, 1857-1939

• Evans, G. E. (George Eyre), 1857-1939

George Eyre Evans (1857-1939), Unitarian minister, historian and antiquary, was born in Colyton, Devon, on 8 September 1857, the son of the Rev. David Lewis Evans and his wife Ophelia (née Powell). He moved to Carmarthen in 1864 when his father became a tutor at Carmarthen College. He was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Carmarthen, Gwilym Marles's academy in Llandysul and Liverpool University. He became a Unitarian minister like his father, served as minister of the Church of the Saviour at Whitchurch, Shropshire, 1889-1897, and later devoted many years to unpaid service at the Unitarian chapel in Aberystwyth. For eighteen years he was a researcher for the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire. He was a member of the Cambrian Archaeological Society from 1903 and was the secretary of the Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society from its formation in 1906 until his death. He was elected to the Court of Governors of UCW Aberystwyth in 1919, and to the Councils of the National Museum of Wales in 1921 and the National Library of Wales in 1924. He lived in Aberystwyth from 1898-1928, then returned to Carmarthen, where he died on 9 November 1939. He published many books on historical, antiquarian and religious subjects, including a History of Renshaw Street Chapel, Liverpool (London, 1887), Whitchurch of Long Ago (Oswestry, 1893), Vestiges of Protestant Dissent (Liverpool, 1897), Colytonia (Liverpool, 1898), Cardiganshire, a Personal Survey (Aberystwyth, 1903), Lampeter (Aberystwyth, 1905) and Lloyd Letters (Aberystwyth, 1908). He also published a private magazine entitled Antiquarian Notes from 1898 until at least 1905. On his death he left a number of unpublished works still in manuscript.

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