Christina Elizabeth Frances Bevan

Last week a follower on twitter sent me an intriguing message – ‘here’s something to pass on to all your Bevan clan’ - he wrote with a link to a feature in a national daily newspaper.

The model in an enigmatic set of photographs taken by Mervyn O'Gorman, thought to be the earliest examples of colour photography, had been identified. Previously known only as Christina it was thought that the young girl in the red bathing suit was O'Gorman's daughter.

However, Christina's true identity came to light when Stephen Riddle, a retired technician, contacted Colin Harding, curator at the National Media Museum with a set of stereoscopic slides by O’Gorman.

The 16 year old model was revealed to be Christina Elizabeth Frances Bevan, the elder daughter of Edwyn Robert Bevan, a classical scholar, archaeologist and philosopher, and his wife, the Honourable Mary Waldegrave.

Mervyn O’Gorman trained first as an electrical engineer before becoming an aircraft engineer and Superintendent of the Royal Aircraft Factory but in his spare time he enjoyed taking photographs and was a pioneer of the Autochrome process.

At the time of the 1911 census, two years before these photographs were taken, Edwyn lived in a substantial property called Sun House on the Chelsea Embankment with his wife and two daughters employing a butler, housekeeper, lady's maid, cook, housemaid and a kitchenmaid.

It was a far cry from the lifestyle of Sylvanus Bevan, 80 and his wife Ann, 79, who had retired from farming and moved to The Sycamores, just a stones throw away from the home where Sylvanus grew up at Bay View Farm, Overton, Gower.

Yet the strawberry blonde 16 year old and the old man and his wife share a common ancestry, tracing their family lines back to Jenkin-ap-Evan and his wife Elizabeth After who lived in Rhossili on the Gower peninsula.

Jenkins' son William, known as William Bevan the Quaker, moved to Swanzey where he practiced his faith and spent two years in prison for his refusal to pay Church Rates and Tithes.Descendants of William founded the famous Plough Court Pharmacy, bought into Henry Thrales Anchor Brewery and married into the Barclay family of bankers.

Christina could trace her ancestry back through her grandfather Robert Cooper Lee Bevan to another Silvanus Bevan and his parents Timothy Bevan and Elizabeth Barclay, back to Jenkin-ap-Evan, the ancestor who Anglicised the Welsh name.

Back home in Gower, Jenkin's other son Francis married and moved into Oxwich Castle where the Bevan family farmed for more than two hundred years, travelling down numerous Francis's and Sylvanus's until another Sylvanus married his cousin Ann in 1855.

The photographs O'Gorman took in 1913 are the subject of an exhibition entitled Drawn by Light on show at the National Media Museum, Bradford until June 21, 2015.

When my twitter follower urged me to pass on the news of Christina's identity I little suspected I would find a link to the ethereal girl in red and the Bevan family from Gower.

Robert Polhill Bevan

Silvanus and Ann's family ancestry can be traced back to Jenkins Bevan and his wife Elizabeth After who married at St Mary's Church, Rhossili c1620. And so can founding member of the Camden Town Group of artists Robert Polhill Bevan.

Silvanus and Ann descend from Jenkins' son Francis Bevan who remained in Gower farming, albeit prosperously. Robert's ancestor was Francis' brother William Bevan who moved to Swansea where he refused to pay church rates and tithes and was imprisoned for two years for his Quaker beliefs.

From this line comes the descent of some very entrepreneurial Bevan family members including Silvanus, founder of the Plough Court Pharmacy. Robert Polhill Bevan's great great grandfather Timothy was partner and brother of Silvanus and it is Timothy who connects the Bevan family to new business opportunities with his two influential marriages. The first one was to Elizabeth, daughter of linendraper and banker David Barclay by whom he had three surviving children, Silvanus, Timothy and Priscilla. His second marriage was to Hannah Gurney, daughter of the philanthropic Gurney Quaker family from Norwich of whom the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry nee Gurney was a descendant.

Born in Hove on August 5, 1865 Robert Polhill Bevan was the son of Richard Alexander Bevan and Laura Maria Polhill. He studied art at the Westminster School of Art, later moving to the Academie Julian in Paris.

Described as a modest man, many of his works were unsold at the time of his death in 1925 and remained in the possession of his family. In 1961 his son and daughter presented a number of his paintings, drawings and lithographs and 27 of his sketchbooks to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Patrick Baty, British historical paint consultant, is Robert's great grandson.

A Small Southdown Farm

A Sale at Tattersalls

Back of the Granary, Poland.

Patrick Baty

How it all began

Several years ago I acquired an archive of family letters and books collected and preserved by Dr Mary Bevan (pictured below).  Mary was born in 1925 in Colwyn Bay, the only child of George Herbert Bevan and his wife Constance. Having graduated from Oxford University, she went on to Medical School in Manchester where she qualified in 1950.

After the sudden death of her mother in 1962, Mary decided to travel, ending up in Mildura, in North Western Australia, where she settled and retrained.  It had always been her intention to retire to her old home in North Wales, but apart from an occasional visit, she failed to return.

Although Mary never married or had children, she left the most extraordinary heritage, over 200 family letters,  dating back to 1839.

Mary's grandfather, George Bevan, was born in 1861 at Bay View Farm, Overton, Gower, the third of Silvanus and Ann Bevan's eleven children.  In 1876 George left the family farm to begin an ironmongery apprenticeship at his Uncle William's shop in Llandudno.

The Bevan family roots in Gower stretch back over 350 years to Jenkin ap Evan, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Peter After in the parish church of St. Mary's at Rhossili c.1620.  Jenkin anglicised his Welsh surname creating the new one of Bevan.

One branch of the family moved to Swansea, a descendant of whom was Silvanus Bevan (1691-1765) an apothecary who created the Plough Court Pharmacy in Lombard Street, Cheapside, the foundation of the 21st century global conglomerate GlaxoSmithKline.

Another Silvanus Bevan (1743-1830) son of Timothy and his first wife Elizabeth Barclay, joined the Quaker family bank of Barclay, Bevan, Tritton & Co and was also a sleeping partner in the takeover of Henry Thrale's famous Southwark Bankside brewery, paying a quarter of the total purchase price of £135,000 in 1781.

However Mary's great-grandfather, yet another Silvanus Bevan, led a more prosaic life.  Farmer and Methodist lay preacher, Silvanus kept close to home, marrying his cousin Ann and raising his large family on the farm overlooking the tempestuous Gower coastline.

George was the first to fly the nest.  He planned to return to his childhood home after completing his apprenticeship with the intention of building a business in Swansea.  However, like Mary, he was also to put down new roots, opening a shop in the developing seaside resort of Colwyn Bay.

George was first elected on to the Local Board in 1890, the beginning of a political career lasting forty-two years.  In 1908 he became a Justice of the Peace for the county and towards the end of his life he was awarded the Honorary Freedom of the Borough in recognition of his services to the town.

Entering the gateway of St. John's Methodist Church for Sunday worship in March 1935, George collapsed and died shortly afterwards.  Opening the eulogy at his funeral the Rev. A.J. Costain said:

"We are met to pay our last tribute to the memory of George Bevan.  He touched the life of the community at many points."

The letters that Mary so carefully preserved, chart the events of George's life and one Victorian Welsh farming family.  I hope she would have approved of this account.

Dr Mary Bevan

Constance Bevan - Mary's mother

George Herbert Bevan - Mary's father