Sir Francis Evans, 1st Baronet

Sir Francis Henry Evans, 1st Baronet, KCMG (29 August 1840 – 22 January 1907[1]) was a British civil engineer, businessman and Liberal Party politician.

He was therefore articled to Sir James Brunlees with whom he worked on a number of projects including the construction of the London and North Western Railway system.

He then went to America with his father during the time of the Civil War and travelled extensively, including taking part in scouting expeditions in Texas.

He went on to found the firm Melville, Evans & Company conducting banking transactions between business interests in Britain and America.

[9] However, the election of Southampton's other MP, the Conservative Tankerville Chamberlayne, was declared void on petition, and in February 1896 Evans won the resulting by-election with a majority of only 33 votes (0.2%).

[19][20] Evans died of Angina pectoris, at his London home in Grosvenor Place, on 22 January 1907 aged 66 after a short illness.

[22] A journal kept by Sir Francis Evans for over thirty years and containing extracts from another book (now missing) in which he kept family and business records and the signatures of those present at his Christmas dinner, is deposited in the Local Studies and Archives section of the Bromley Public Library.

The journal is written in an informal lively style, mainly detailing his widespread travels at home and abroad, family problems and illnesses, and his own accounts of events affecting his political and business career.

For example, the entry for 19 September 1873 has a dramatic description of a 'run' on his bank, Jay, Cooke, McCulloch & Co., the reasons for which are not clear, but by 1879 two of his partners had left the firm, one of whom, Puleston, he sued ostensibly for having embezzled £10,000 for speculative investment.

In 1888, while he was in America, the Southampton by-election (at which he was standing) was held, and he gives his own exciting version of the hectic travelling to get back as soon as possible, and his attempts on arrival to discover the result from the ship's pilots.