Evans, George William (1780 - 1852)

Summary

George Evans arrived in New South Wales in 1802 and was appointed acting surveyor-general in 1803. He surveyed and explored the Warragamba River and the Illawarra and was the first European to cross the Great Dividing Range. He was appointed Deputy Surveyor General in Tasmania in 1811 and was responsible for one of the first complete charts of Tasmania in 1820. He was a competent artist, and published "Geographical, Historical and Topographical description of Van Diemen's Land …" in 1822.

Details

Born England, 5 January 1780. Died Hobart, 16 October 1852. Short apprenticeship with an engineer and architect and some elementary training in surveying, Naval Store-Keeper's Department, Table Bay 1798-1802, store-keeper in charge of the receipt and issue of grain at Parramatta 1802-03, acting surveyor-general 1804-05, farming, Hawkesbury 1805-09, surveying, New South Wales 1809-12, deputy-surveyor of lands, Van Diemen's Land 1812-25, recalled to Sydney 1813 to try to find a passage into the interior (on this expedition he was the first European to cross the Great Dividing Range), in 1815 to act as guide on a tour of the country he had discovered in 1813, in 1817 to act as second-in-command to Oxley (q.v.) in an expedition setting out from Bathurst to determine the course of the Lachlan River and in 1818 to fill the position of second-in-command to Oxley in an attempt to trace the Macquarie River to its termination, art teacher, England 1826-32, bookseller and stationer, then drawing master , The King's School, then housed in Harrisford, George Street, Parramatta while his wife conducted a finishing school for young ladies, Hobart 1844-52.

He is commemorated by statues in Bathurst, Melbourne, Adelaide and the Mitchell Library, Sydney.

Related entries

Archival resources

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

• Edmund Morris Miller - Records, 1958, ML MSS 1054; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• George William Evans - Records, 1780 - 1852, A6996; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

Published resources

Books

• Whitehead, John, Tracking and Mapping the Explorers, vol. 1: the Lachlan River exploration, 1817, Oxley - Evans - Cunningham (Coonabarabran (N.S.W.): John Whitehead, 2003), 363 pp. Details
• Whitehead, John, Tracking and Mapping the Explorers, vol. 2: the Macquarie River, Warrumbungle Mts, Pilliga Scrub, Liverpool Plains, Apsley Falls, Hastings River, Port Macquarie 1818, Oxley and Evans (Coonabarabran (N.S.W.): John Whitehead, 2004), 350 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Weatherburn, A. K., 'Evans, George William (1780-1852), surveyor and explorer' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 1: 1788 - 1850 A-H, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp. 359-360. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010343b.htm. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q472525. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/88031986. Details
• 'Evans, George William (1780-1852)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-465889. Details

See also

• Anon, 'History of the Institution of Surveyors, Tasmania', Australian Surveyor, 21 (7) (1967), 205-212, https://doi.org/10.1080/00050326.1967.10440052. pp.205-206. Details
• Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details