EVANS, William

Born in Edinburgh. He entered the service of the Scottish Widows Fund but was obliged to retire when in his early 40s as a result of ill health. He then devoted the remainder of his life to a wide range of natural history pursuits including entomology. Although he had travelled extensively in the British Isles and in Europe, and had visited the United States and Canada, most of his work was on the Scottish fauna and flora, particularly of the Forth area. Evans's interest in entomology was wide ranging as the many notes and articles which he published in the Ann. Scot. nat. Hist. and, after 1900, in other periodicals, show. The first devoted to Coleoptera appears to have been ‘Saperda carcharias L. in Elginshire’ (Ann. Scot. nat Hist., 1, 1892, p.78) and the last ‘Apion miniatum Germ.in Scotland’ (EMM., 54, 1918, p.64). His publications included one note with T. Hudson Beare on the Coleoptera of Mole's nests in the Edinburgh district (EMM., 45, 1909, p.88). As a recorder Evans is said to have been scrupulously careful to ensure accuracy, and what he could not identify with certainty he sent to others. For some time his work on the Scottish fauna was varied by the preparation and distribution of the large amounts of material which his son William Edgar Evans (see below) forwarded to him from Mesopotamia. Evans was at one time President of the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh and is recorded to have been an editor of the Scottish Naturalist (although his name is not officially listed as such in that publication). There are 193 records of Coleoptera on the Nottingham Natural History Museum database, mostly ‘WE’, some as ‘Evans,W’ or ‘Evans’, from various Scottish localities (Aberfoyle, Aviemore, Dollar, Kincraig, etc., 1889-1898, some in the Thornley and Ryles collections (Information from Michael Cooper).
Gilbert (1977) lists four obituaries and there is an account with portrait in P. Bonnet, Bibliographia Araneorum, 1, 1945, p.51. (MD 10/02)