Abstract
IN the Lewis Evans Collection of Historic Scientific Instruments is a small jointed rule of ivory, inset with a compass needle, and engraved as a portable sundial. It was a special favourite of Dr. Lewis Evans, whose death occurred on Sept. 25 last, because it bears the inscription, “Registered 1853”, which by a happy chance was the year of his birth, on Feb. 15. Twenty years later Francis Galton might well have included the Evans family among those English men of science whose hereditary influences and education he described at the Royal Institution, for at least four generations have achieved scientific distinction. The Rev. Lewis Evans, vicar of Froxfield, 1788–1827, was an accomplished mechanician and astronomer, who ground his own specula, recorded observations, and continued to 1864 the calculations on Ferguson's Astronomical Instrument and Rotula, published in 1817. He had been educated at Merton College, Oxford, was instructor in mathematics at the Royal Academy at Woolwich, and became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1823. He was in the habit of communicating mathematical notes to the Reading Mercury under the nom de plume of ‘Felix Ford’ (anagram of Froxfield), some of which are preserved with his lecture MSS. in the Lewis Evans collection. One of his sons, Thomas Simpson Evans, LL.D., became an assistant at Greenwich and, later, mathematical instructor at Woolwich. His grandson, Sir John Evans, K.C.B., for many years treasurer of the Royal Society, attained to special eminence as an antiquary, a branch of study which has been materially extended by both his sons—Arthur, who has also the scientific blue-ribbon of F.R.S., and Lewis, the subject of this notice, who died on Sept. 25. On the distaff side, two ancestors had also achieved similar distinction, namely, John Dickinson, F.R.S., F.S.A., and George Dionysius Ehret, F.R.S., the inimitable flower painter, who was born at Erfurt in 1708, and died at Chelsea in 1770.
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G., R. Dr. Lewis Evans. Nature 126, 692–693 (1930). https://doi.org/10.1038/126692a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/126692a0