BY the sudden death of Mr. Henry Evans on July 23 the Midlands have lost a well-known and wealthy banker, and the West Highlands of Scotland an equally well-known deer-stalker, yachtsman and naturalist. Born in 1831, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, graduated there, and was a member of the Senate of the University to the end of his life, coming up from time to time to record his vote on matters of importance. Early in his career he appears to have developed a love of natural history pursuits, for while an undergraduate he became an associate of the Ray Club, of which there are only six at a time, chosen on account of some proved zeal in these studies. He took at that time to entomology, and made a collection of British Lepidoptera. Even up to the end of his life, when he had long abandoned these early predilections, he was still proud of his insect cabinet, and especially of the numerous and fine specimens which it included of the now extinct English large copper butterfly. Being the youngest son of a banker, he naturally became a partner in his father's bank, that of Messrs. W. and S. Evans and Co., of Derby, and on its amalgamation with another firm he was made a director of the new company, Crompton Evans Union Bank. But though a shrewd and capable man of business, he never mingled in public affairs. The leisure of his younger years was largely given to rifle-shooting, in which he grew to be one of the best shots in the country. He competed at the Wimbledon meetings of the National Rifle Association until a lamentable accident occurred to him at one of the practices, when the rifle of a companion was unwittingly discharged against his leg. Three successive amputations were necessitated, and he had to go up on crutches to receive a prize wrhich he had won. This disaster, however, was not allowed to deprive him of his favourite sport. He had become an expert shot among the red deer of the Scottish forests and the seals of the coast of Connemara, and with indomitable courage he now availed himself of the help of a pony and continued his campaigns among the mountains with more success than ever. In one season he fired fifty-two shots and killed fifty deer. After renting various tracts of ground in the Highlands, he finally, in 1875, leased the forest which comprises the extensive mountain ground in the centre of the island of Jura. Choosing a tract of bare moorland that sloped down to the sea, he built there a comfortable mansion-house, surrounding it with trees and shrubs and flowers, covering it with roses, and ingeniously devising expedients that baffled the Atlantic blasts and enabled his vegetation to bloom and spread. This charming Highland retreat became his home for some months every season for nearly thirty years, and he lingered longer there as time went on until eventually he spent more than half of each year in Jura. But though deer-stalking was the original and predominant motive for these prolonged northern sojourns, he was far more than a mere sportsman. His early love of natural history pursuits found an ample field for development in his island home, but it was to the birds that he now gave his attention. Gifted with excellent eyesight, Mr. Evans was an acute and accurate observer. The rapidity and exactness of his recognition of birds on the wing were so remarkable that to friends who accompanied him it almost seemed as if he were the happy possessor of another sense beyond the number allotted to ordinary mortals. He made his mountains and moors in Jura a perfect paradise for wild birds. No gun or trap was ever allowed to be used against them, and everything was done that would induce them to frequent the district.
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Nov 1, 1913
H.B Fullerton 
Open Access