Robert Harding Evans

After an education at Westminster School he was apprenticed to Thomas Payne of the Mews Gate, and succeeded to the business of James Edwards, bookseller in Pall Mall, London.

Among other famous libraries dispersed by him were those of:[1] Other sales were of:[1] He also sold the White Knights library (of George Spencer-Churchill, 5th Duke of Marlborough),[2] those of James Bindley, John Dent, George Hibbert, Dudley Long North, and some portions of Richard Heber's (1836).

[1] Evans's own marked set of catalogues went to the British Museum, and between 1812 and 1847 the chief libraries sold in England went through his hands.

He was in the habit of discoursing upon the books passing under his hammer; but his expertise as an auctioneer was not matched by ordinary business qualities, and he fell into money troubles.

[1] Evans died in Edward Street, Hampstead Road, London, on 25 April 1857, in his eightieth year.