Dr Thomas George Cann Evans 

Thomas was born in 1857 in Seaton the son of the local surgeon George Evans and his wife Henrietta. He spent his early life in Seaton and was sent away to Aldenham School in Hertfordshire in 1870 (1). He was trained at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and appears on the Medical Register in 1881 as M.R.C.S. England, and in 1882 added the qualification of L.R.C.P. Edinburgh. He probably came more or less immediately to practice in Budleigh Salterton as in July 1882 he took up the post of Medical Officer and Vaccinator for the East Budleigh District. His work-load can be gauged from the letter that he sent to the St. Thomas Guardians asking for an increase in his salary (2):-

“Sir, Having filled the post of Medical Officer of the East Budleigh District since July last, and being well acquainted with the work required of me, I beg respectfully to ask the Board to increase my salary, which I find very inadequate to the work. During the last six months I have had 1,892 entries in my book, of which 1,032 have been patients visited in their own houses, making an average of 73 entries and 40 visits per week. In the 182 days of the half-year I have had to visit one or more patients at East Budleigh on 115 days, Budleigh Salterton 76 days; Knowle 55; Kersbrook 34, Geddington 17; Hawkland 9 and Kinn 4. Two thirds at least of the population of my district are paupers ..”. His salary was raised to £100 per annum. (NB: Geddington may be a misprint for Yettington but Kinn is a mystery, it could be a misprint for Pinn but as Otterton doesn’t appear to have been part of his district this seems unlikely).

Thomas was listed in Kelly’s Directory living at Hillside, 4 West Terrace, from 1883. (Hillside today is number 3 and has been converted into 3 dwellings and number 3A has retained the name Hillside). In 1884 Thomas married Mary Bond in Axminster and, according to Directory & Census records, the couple lived at Hillside up until at least 1911 but they were absent during the war years when I believe they were probably in New South Wales in Australia (see later). While they were in Budleigh they had 3 children, Thomas Charles Cann Evans (Tom) in 1886, Mary Elvira Evans (Molly) in 1888, and Maurice Cann Evans in 1896. As was fairly common practice, the two boys were sent away to school; in 1901 we find Tom at Epsom College (which had a reputation as a training ground for future doctors) and Maurice went to his father’s old school in Hertfordshire (1).  

Thomas found time to serve on the Budleigh Salterton Local Board and later, after the Urban District Councils were instituted in 1894 (3), he served on the UDC and was the Chairman for a number of years, and finally Vice Chairman in 1911. He was interested in sport and was at one time Captain of the town Cricket Club and was Vice President of the Football Club (4,5). He also rode to hounds. He was Hon. Treasurer of the short lived Budleigh Salterton Youth Recreation Society (6). In 1912 he was Re-Elected Chairman of the local Constitution (Conservative) Club (7).

Father Thomas is listed in the Medical Register in 1923 and 1927 in Kygole in New South Wales and both his sons were there during the early part of WW1 which is where I believe Thomas & Mary went in, or just before, 1914 as they do not feature in the Budleigh Directories in1914 and he resigned his appointment as Medical Officer at the Budleigh Salterton Hospital; the Minutes of the Hospital Committee in January recording that he had been one of the medical officers since the hospital opened (in 1888) and they wished “him and his family well in their new home”. His daughter Mary sadly drowned on a voyage back to Liverpool from Australia in autumn 1919, and earlier the same year Thomas’ wife died in Kygole.  In 1920 he re-married to Miss Margaret Miriam Barling at “a quiet wedding” in Casino, NSW. In 1924 they had a son John Barling Evans.

By 1931 they were back in Devon at Sidbury (Medical Register) and in April 1932 Thomas was involved in a car crash on the Exeter-Lyme Road near the Three Horse Shoes Inn, near Branscombe. The newspaper account said that his seven year old son sustained a fractured jaw in the incident (8).

Thomas died in Sidbury in 1933 and his widow and son returned to Australia where she died in 1954. John Barling Evans became an engineer.

Dr Thomas Charles Cann Evans

Dr Tom Evans was born in Budleigh Salterton in 1886 and after schooling locally he went to Epsom College in 1897 (9). He won a scholarship to St. Mary’s Medical School in London, qualifying M.B, B.S. in 1910; during his medical training he also served in the City of London Yeomanry. In 1911 he was House Surgeon at St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington and his next appointment was at the Fulham Infirmary.

Around 1914 he emigrated to Kygole in New South Wales, Australia to join his parents and other siblings and was a government medical officer. He offered his services to the Australian Medical Corps at the start of WW1, but it wasn’t until January 1915 that he was called up and enlisted as a Captain. He was sent in February to Egypt to become the M.O. of the 7th Light Horse and went with them to Gallipoli for several strenuous months before contracting dysentery in September and then jaundice. He was sent to Malta and then on to hospital in Wandsworth to recover. He was passed fit in December and his next posting was to France to the 13th Australian Field Ambulance where he remained, apart from a couple of months transporting wounded soldiers back to Australia (which afforded him a quick visit back to see his parents in Kygole) (10), and two brief leaves in England. The Field Ambulance provided assistance for at least 14 actions around the Somme and Ypres areas between autumn 1916 and the end of the war;( the Anzacs were in the thick of the fighting and sustained large numbers killed and wounded putting great strain on the medical and ambulance staff). In January 1917 he was promoted to Major. Thomas had been mentioned in dispatches at least twice and in1918 was awarded a D.S.O. for his work, and his commanding officer wrote the following account of the actions that resulted in his being recommended for the award:

“Major T C C Evans was in command of the combined Transport of the three Field Ambulances of the 4th Australian Division between the 11th and 26th October 1917 while the Division was in action on the Passchendale Front. During this action, it was necessary to transport wounded on horsed ambulance wagons to the motor loading post, a distance of about a mile. Day and night horsed ambulances worked along the road which was constantly under heavy shell fire. Major Evans personally organised and conducted the loading of wounded onto wagons.

Major Evans exhibited the greatest contempt of personal danger throughout this difficult and dangerous work. The brilliant example of courage and intrepid fearlessness which he at all times displayed when under fire in most trying circumstances, especially during traffic blocks on this congested road, both cheered and encouraged the men under his command and ensured the successful evacuation of the wounded.

Major Evans has done the most excellent surgical work with this field ambulance (13th) almost since its formation and has been present during every action in which the 4th Australian Division has been engaged in France and previously as H.M.O. 7th Light Horse during the Gallipoli Campaign.”

While he was taking a short leave in London in January 1919 he married Isabel Dorothy Joyce Dennys (11) in Kensington Parish Church. He returned to France briefly but had to take leave for medical reasons. On 31st May 1919 he returned from England to Australia and was “de-mobbed” in September 1919. Along with his D.S.O. received the usual three WW1 medals with the addition of an oak leaf on the Victory Medal in recognition of being mentioned in dispatches.

Tom and Joyce lived in Kygole until 1921 when they returned to England and their daughter Philippa was born in Kensington in 1922 (at Joyce’s family home I presume). Tom started medical practice in Budleigh and they were living at 4 Cliff Terrace from about 1923 to 1926 or later, and in 1930 they were listed at Little Hill on Fore Street Hill (Kelly’s Directories and Medical Registers). (Little Hill is now called Simcoe House). They later moved into Lion House next door.

Tom carried out his medical practice in the town and at the Budleigh Salterton Hospital and accounts of his attendance at several accidents and inquests are to be found in the local newspapers. There were some particularly harrowing accounts of, for example, a baby crawling onto the railway track near Colaton Raleigh and being killed by a train, a young evacuee boy during the war falling down the cliff at Ladram Bay, Colonel J E Loveband falling from an upstairs window during the night, and a lady found dead from what he deduced at the inquest was an over-dose of Veronal. 

Soon after his arrival in the town he started a series of classes at the Women’s Institute entitled “First Aid Home Nursing”. In July 1924 the Western Times reported that a meeting was held of the Exmouth Cycling and Sports Club in Budleigh Salterton with the idea of forming a sub-section in Budleigh and 10 people signed up. Dr Evans was elected as Vice President of the Club and thanked for the interest he had shown in the project. In November of the same year he became a Vice President with Dr Semple of the Small Bore Rifle Club in Little Knowle. 

Like his father before him, he was elected in April 1924 to the Budleigh Salterton Urban District Council; he was a member of the Council until 1928, becoming its Chairman, but there was a major row in the summer of that year when, apart from himself and one lady member, the Council voted not to implement the Milk and Dairies Order of 1926 requiring work to local diaries to improve their cleanliness. The view of all other members was that it would cost too much for the tenant farmers. The controversy was not helped by a case of typhoid in the town occurring at that time. He resigned in protest.

One of his major contributions to the town was undoubtedly his participation in amateur dramatics along with his wife Joyce. When he was a boy in the town he had also been in involved with amateur productions (12). For several years there was a regular pantomime or other entertainment at Christmas and also during the year, and the local newspapers favourably re-viewed them. Tom was a particular favourite appearing for example as:- a tramp in “A Pair of Silk Stockings” by ? Cyril Harcourt, Dame Clopperty in “Margery Daw” a fairy play by V. Rowlandson (January 1929), Hon. Edward Cardew in the Gertrude  Jennings comedy “Isabel, Edward and Anne” (August 1929), David Bliss in Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever” (April 1930), the King of Hearts in “The Queen of Hearts” (January 1931), Widow Twankey in “Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp” (December 1931), the villainous Captain Rudolph de Vavasour in “The Miller’s Daughter” (April 1934), and Widow Twankey in “Jack and the Beanstalk” (January 1935). During WW2 there were concerts in aid of various war charities and Tom lead the community singing in one concert in May 1940 and appeared in a review in 18 parts entitled “It’s Never Too Late” in January 1941 that was organised by Mrs Gwendoline Fulton in place of the usual pantomime. (Mrs Fulton was responsible for the staging of most of the entertainments mentioned above).

In December 1942 their daughter Philippa married Lieutenant Maurice William Catesby. She was a staff nurse at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital in Southernhay and met Maurice in May 1942 when he was recovery in the hospital from wounds, and they were both there during the Exeter blitz. In 1944 Maurice was awarded the Military Cross.

Tom was a golfer and entered some local competitions sometimes with his wife but one of his main passions was fishing. I was told that he used to fish from the beach and when a patient appeared at his surgery in Lion House Joyce would wave a flag from the garden to summon him. (Before the NHS was formed private patients could turn up at any time!).

He died on 5th January 1965 and his wife moved back to London and died on the 23rd February 1991.

Maurice Cann Evans

Maurice was Tom Evans’ younger brother born in 1896. After schooling in England (1) he emigrated to Kygole with his parents and entered Hawkesbury Agricultural College in New South Wales. At the outbreak of WW1 he enlisted at Victoria Barracks at the age of 19 as a private and embarked from Sydney on 23rd September to serve with the 1st Light Horse Field Ambulance in Gallipoli, Egypt, Palestine and the Sinai Peninsula, reaching the rank of corporal.  During the war he kept diaries, and the ones from February 1915 to December 1918 are held at the State Library of New South Wales (13). They also have the typescript of a short play he wrote in 1916 entitled “Into the Shadows”.  In 1917 he started to learn Arabic with a view to staying in the Middle East after the war. The Horse Ambulance Unit used camel cacolets to carry wounded, one camel could carry two patients, one on either side of the camel’s hump and he had hoped to transfer to the Camel Corps but was unsuccessful.  He returned to Australia in December 1918. Of the 750 men from Hawkesbury College who enlisted only139 returned home.

He obviously wasn’t content to stay in Australia and moved to Ceylon where he was the manager of the Kandenewera Tea Plantation at Matale from 1924 to 1930. During some of his time in Ceylon he was a Sergeant Major in the Warriapolla Estates Squadron of the Ceylon Mounted Rifles (which seems to have been a voluntary defence force disbanded in 1931). He returned to England and in September 1931 married Margaret Elizabeth Helen Blackmore in Weobley, Herefordshire and they returned to Ceylon shortly after the wedding. I assume he returned to tea planting because in 1935 Maurice was chosen to become the Chairman of the Matale Planters’ Association (14), and contributed an article entitled “New Aspects of the Regeneration of Tea” to “The Tea Quarterly” journal in 1938.

Their first daughter Ethel Meriel was born in South Africa in August 1934, and a second daughter Angela Mary was born three years later. In May 1945 Maurice’s wife Margaret and the two girls returned to England from South Africa. It is possible they had been living there because it was safer than Ceylon with the possibility of a Japanese invasion. When Maurice returned is not clear, but the family were established at Eardsland, Herefordshire in 1954 at the time of Meriel’s marriage. Meriel became a ballet dancer and married the Hon. Luke Asquith, grandson of Herbert Asquith the former Prime Minister in Chelsea in 1954. 

Maurice was still living in Eardisland when he died in July 1992.

Researched and Written by Roger Lendon © 2018

 (1) The History and Register of Aldenham School (7th ed.) E. Baylis & Son: Worcester & London (1938). Compiled by Edmund Beevor M.A., G.C.F. Mead M.A., R.J. Evans M.A., and T.M. Savory M.A.
(2) 22 March 1883 - Exeter and Plymouth Gazette
(3) Local Government Act 1894
(4) 06 May 1891 - Exeter and Plymouth Gazette 
(5)  28 September 1906 - Exeter and Plymouth Gazette 
(6) 03 November 1899 Western Times
(7) 15 January 1912 - Exeter and Plymouth Gazette
(8) 08 April 1932 - Western Times
(9) http://archive.epsomcollege.org.uk/First_World_War/Known%20to%20have%20served.pdf
(10) 08 June 1918 The Kyogle Examiner
(11) Details of Joyce Dennys interesting artistic and writing career can be found at Fairlynch Museum and Michael Downes has written several blogs about her e.g. http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/more-joyce-dennys-paintings-on-display.html
(12) 31 December 1892 - Exeter and Plymouth Gazette 
(13) State Library of New South Wales collection of World War I diaries. Evans war diaries, August 1914-December 1918 / Maurice Cann Evans
(14)  Tea and Coffee Trade Journal - Volumes 68-69 - Page 76            

The image of Tom Evans came from:-

https://ww1australianscommemorateduk.weebly.com/budleigh---salterton.html

BS-B-00084 Biography