Details of Sculptor

Surname

Thomas

Alternative Surname

First Name

John Evan

Initial of Surname

T

Year of Birth/Baptism

1810

Flourished

Year of Death

1873

Biographical Details

John Evan Thomas senior and his wife, Jane, of Brecon, South Wales, were the parents of three gifted sons. John Evan Thomas, the eldest, was born on 15 January 1810 and by the age of 14 showed such a talent for carving fruits and flowers in stone that he was sent to London to study under Sir Francis Chantrey. William Meredyth Thomas followed his elder brother into Chantrey’s studio and James Lewis Thomas became a successful architect and eventually chief surveyor to the War Office.
Thomas spent some time on the Continent before returning to London to take a studio in Belgrave Place and by 1830 was producing funerary monuments, mostly for Welsh clients. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838, showing a bust of Daniel Jones, a benefactor of the Cardiff Infirmary (66). In 1840 he married Mary Gunter who came from a distinguished Welsh family and by this time William Meredyth had joined him as his assistant, an arrangement that was to last for 30 years. In 1842 John Evan became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, proposed, among others, by Admiral William Henry Smyth and the architect, George Godwin, who later became editor of the Builder.
A statue of the Marquess of Londonderry was commissioned by the Marquess’s brother for Westminster Abbey (37). It was exhibited at Westminster Hall in 1844 and then displayed on the staircase at Holderness House during a banquet, where it was ‘universally admired’. In 1848 Thomas provided a statue of Sir Charles Morgan MP for Bridge Street, Newport (53). During the same period Thomas executed two statues for Charles Barry’s new Palace of Westminster, Henri de Londres, Archbishop of Dublin, (57) and the Earl of Pembroke (64), both signatories of Magna Carta. In 1848 also he showed his Death of Tewdric, King of Gwent and Morganwg at the Abergavenny Eisteddfod and won a prize of 70 guineas for ‘the best model in plaster illustrative of Cambro-British History’ (55). This was later cast in bronze by Elkington & Co and shown as part of their display at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Thomas, who was one of the original guarantors of the exhibition, showed a statue of the Marquess of Bute destined for Cardiff (59) and a plaster relief, Science unveiling ignorance (107). In 1852 he produced a bust of Sir Benjamin Hall (93), the chief commissioner for works at the time of the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, for whom the great bell in the clock tower was named ‘Big Ben’.
Following the death of the Duke of Wellington in 1852 Thomas was commissioned by the corporation of Brecon to design a statue to his memory for the town, incorporating a relief showing the death at Waterloo of the Welsh hero, General Picton (63). Thomas himself contributed £700 towards the cost of the memorial which was unveiled in 1856.
James Lewis Thomas was treasurer to the Most Honourable and Loyal Society of Ancient Britons which owned a school in London for children of Welsh parentage. When the school moved to its present site in Ashford in 185, John Evan Thomas was given the commission to produce a statue of the Prince of Wales for the entrance hall (61). The young prince, accompanied by his father, went to the sculptor’s studio for sittings.
Thomas moved back to Wales in 1857 but kept a London studio in Buckingham Palace Road. He bought a house at Lanspyddid near Brecon where he served as a magistrate and in 1862 became a deputy lieutenant of the county. In 1868 he was high sheriff of Brecknockshire.
In 1864, after the death of the Prince Consort, the mayor of Tenby decided that Wales should follow England, Scotland and Ireland and erect its own national memorial. The commission was entrusted to John Evan Thomas, who advised that the work should be executed in Sicilian marble rather than bronze, which was inclined to look ‘heavy and dwarf everything around it’. He said the marble statue would be ‘light and hard as metal’ and ‘much less common than one in bronze’. The memorial, the design of which was approved and revised personally by Queen Victoria, was unveiled on Castle Hill, Tenby, by the 15-year old Prince Arthur in 1865 (65).
Thomas continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy until 1870. He died in London on 9 October 1873 and was buried in Brompton cemetery. His nephew later wrote affectionately of his uncle, recounting how he ‘identified himself with the interests and progress of his country’. He said that ‘Mr Evan Thomas’ social qualities endeared him to a large circle of friends, and his conversational powers and fund of anecdotes, as well as his mature judgement of all matters concerning art, made him an honoured guest in all the houses of the great in rank, literature and opulence’. (Add inf. Adrian James)
Sylvia Allen
Literary References: 1851 & 1871 Census; Poole 1886, 495; Jones 1909, 1911, 1930; Graves VII 1905-6, 360-1; Harley Thomas 1936; Dict Welsh Biography, 1959, 955; Darby & Smith 1983, 76,78; ODNB (Evans)
Portraits of the Sculptor: William Meredyth Thomas, bust, exhib RA, 1848, untraced