Richardson Evans

[1] Evans served in the Indian Civil Service, for the North-Western Provinces from 1867 to 1876, after which he worked in London as a journalist.

[1][2] From the 1880s onwards, Evans campaigned to limit advertising in the fields alongside railway lines; to save the view of the Thames from Richmond Hill, and similar causes.

It was a vigorous attack on the various abuses which had arisen through the indiscriminate use of posters and advertising signs, which he believed ‘are efficacious very often in proportion to the annoyance they cause’.

[4] The Richardson Evans Memorial Playing Fields (REMPF), at Putney Vale beside Wimbledon Common, are named in his honour.

Reporting the ceremony handing over the Deeds of Longshaw to the National Trust on 27 June, the Sheffield Telegraph wrote:‘A part of the estate, covering 25 acres, consisting of Owler Tor, a view-point near the Hathersage Road, and surrounding Land, will always be a memorial to the late Mr Richardson Evans, a pioneer in the work of preserving natural beauty, and a founder of the Scapa Society, his widow having given £500 to the fund on condition that his name was associated with it in this way.’ (Sheffield Daily Telegraph 29 June 1931).