Researching George Evans

Evans first joined the Scots Guards in March 1894, and served during the Second Boer War. He left the Army in August 1902, to work for the NSPCC, and rejoined in January 1915. When he was 40 years old, and a Company Sergeant-Major in the 18th Battalion (3rd Manchester Pals), The Manchester Regiment of the British Army during the First World War, Evans was awarded the Victoria Cross for his deeds on 30 July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme at Guillemont, France:

Company Sergeant-Major Evans volunteered to take back an important message after five runners had been killed in attempting to do so. He had to cover about 700 yards, the whole of which was under observation from the enemy. He succeeded in delivering the message in spite of being wounded, and then rejoined his company despite having been advised to go to the dressing station. The return journey had again meant facing 700 yards of severe rifle and machine-gun fire, but by dodging from shell-hole to shell-hole he managed it.

Evans was captured following his VC action, and spent the rest of the war as a POW. His Victoria Cross, gazetted in January 1920, was the last to be gazetted for the First World War.

He died on 28 September 1937 and was buried with full military honours in Elmers End Cemetery, Beckenham.

His VC medal group are still held by his family and are loaned to the Imperial War Museum in London where they are on display in the Lord Ashcroft VC/GC Gallery.

In 1844, Evans, the trade unionist John Windt, the former Chartist Thomas Devyr and others founded the National Reform Association, which lobbied Congress and sought political supporters with the slogan "Vote Yourself a Farm." Between 1844 and 1862, Congress received petitions signed by 55,000 Americans calling for free public lands for homesteaders.

Free land was depicted as a means of attracting the excessive eastern population westward, and, as a result, bringing about higher wages and better working conditions for the laboring man in the eastern industrial areas. For many years the public domain had been regarded as the safety valve of the American political and economic order.The efforts of Evans and his allies—notably Horace Greeley—led to the Homestead Act of 1862. Evans, thus, deserves the title of "Father of the Homestead Act."

Evans was a publisher, and the editor of a series of radical newspapers including: Workingman's Advocate (1829–36, 1844–45), New York Daily Sentinel (1830), The Man (1834), The Radical (1841–43), The People's Rights (1844), and Young America (1845–49). He also spent the period 1837–41, and the period after 1848, on his farm in New Jersey. George Henry Evans died in 1855, at Granville (now known as Keansburg), New Jersey.

Evans was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. and became a fellow of Jesus in 1650, and graduated M.A. in 1653. He became vicar of New Windsor, and was installed Canon of Windsor 30 July 1660. He proceeded D.D. at Cambridge in 1665; was licensed to St. Benet Fink, London, 16 May 1663; and was also rector of Hitcham, Buckinghamshire. His son, George Evans, also a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, succeeded him at Benet Fink in 1693. He was a friend and correspondent of Elias Ashmole, and made collections relating to the history of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, printed in Ashmole's 'Berkshire,’ 1719.

He died 2 March 1701–2.

Evans' career also included success as an artist, providing illustrations for Cosmopolitan, American, Woman's Home Companion, and Redbook.

As a dog breeder, Evans created the Old Hemlock line of English Setters whose progeny continue to be prized by hunters across the United States for their bird hunting abilities.