| Description | The first member of the family I have been able to identify was John Evan of Bletherston. He is described as a yeoman in a marriage settlement of 12th October 1761 drawn up before the marriage of his second son William Evan, also a yeoman, to Sarah Phillip, the eldest daughter of John Phillip of Caerau in the parish of Llanddewi Velfrey. It is probable that the William Evans who was born on 29th September 1763 was a child of this marriage but the surviving papers do not make it absolutely clear. This William married Mary Eaton, daughter of James Eaton of Narberth, at Narberth Church on 2nd October 1787. Somehow or other William became a solicitor and began to practice at Narberth and later Haverfordwest. He and Mary had eight children between 1790 and 1802. It was their second son John, born 27th November 1793, who first joined his father in practice but John predeceased his father in February 1826. In April of that year William retired from the business in favour of this third and fourth sons; William, born 14th December 1796 and Thomas, born 27th February 1802. Thomas died in 1832 leaving William, William the younger as he was called to distinguish him from his father, to carry on alone. He had married Cecil Warlow on 13th January 1831. Their first two children, both sons, died in fancy but their third son Edward Eaton, born on 7th February 1835, survived. William Evans took on Jonathan Rogers Powell as a partner in June 1834 and the firm was known as William Evans and Powell until January 1845 when Henry Mathias of Lamphey joined them. In this same year William Evans began building a new house for himself and his family. He decided to call the house Avallenau, an anglicised spelling of the Welsh word for apple trees, though it is not certain that he himself spoke the language of his Bletherston ancestors. He was not to enjoy his new house for long. On Saturday 29th August 1846 he suffered a stroke. He and his wife moved into the new house on 9th November of that year but on 19th April 1847 he suffered a second stroke. A deed of partnership of 1st July 1847 speaks of William lying incapacitated at Avallenau. His nephew James Eaton Evans took his place in the partnership with Jonathan Rogers Powell and Henry Mathias. William lingered until 19th April 1849. He was buried on 20th April in the north aisle of St Mary's Church in the grave of his infant sons. Edward Eaton Evans was some 14 years old at the time of his father's death. He went away to school, was articled on 17th January 1851 and became a partner on 1st January 1861. He did not retire until 30th June 1923 when he was 88 years old. During his long career he was one of Haverfordwest's best known figures, becoming Mayor in 1888. Edward died on 14th November 1924. He had married Georgiana Ann Stokes, daughter of Colonel George Warren Stokes of Scotchwell, Haverfordwest in 1865. Their eldest son William George, born some two years after the marriage, was educated at Sherborne College and was admitted a solicitor in 1890. Like his father William George was something of a public man. He was a member of the Pembrokeshire County Council from 1910 to 1936 when ill-health forced him to retire. He was Chairman of the County Council in 1925 - 1926. At other times in his career he was a member of the Haverfordwest Rural District Council and briefly of the Haverfordwest Borough Council. He was also a Justice of the Peace and a Deputy Lieutenant of Pembrokeshire. That ill health which forced him to retire from Public life in 1936 also compelled his retirement from business in the following year when the very well-known partnership of Eaton-Evans and Williams was dissolved. William George died on 17th October 1939 at the age of 72 and was buried in St Thomas' Church as his father had been.
His son, Mr James Eaton Evans, the present principal of the firm Eaton Evans and Morris, was educated at Malvern College and carried on the family tradition by becoming a solicitor. He served in the Second World War and attained the rank of Major. In this too he was following a family tradition as William George Eaton Evans had been a major in the Pembrokeshire Volunteers. Unlike his father and grandfather Mr James Eaton Evans has not sought elective office but this has not stopped him becoming one of the town's best known characters. He moved out of Avallenau, the family home, soon after the end of the Second World War when the house was purchased by the Pembrokeshire County Council. It was an old peoples home and then a children's home. It is now empty. Mr Eaton Evans lives close by. His children have not followed him into the firm and he seems destined to be the last Eaton Evans in legal practice in Haverfordwest |