New book sheds light on nineteenth century South Shields vicar

A new book, to be released on September 16, explores the story of Rev David Evans, who was for a quarter of a century or more rarely out of the headlines in South Shields, and eventually the focus of national press coverage.

Evans was the vicar of St. Mark’s, a new parish carved out of Holy Trinity in the 1870s, and one of the poorest parishes in South Shields. He founded schools to go along with the Church, which opened properly in 1875 after five years as an ‘iron church’, or temporary church.

By the 1890s, Evans, well-known for the number of begging letters he sent around the country, had seen his congregation dwindle to a handful. He was on the verge of his second bankruptcy. Rumours abounded of his having children with his housekeeper, and of his being repeatedly drunk.

He was repeatedly in court, and the bane of the Bishop of Durham’s life. An archive in Durham contains over five hundred items relating to him. What had gone wrong? What was the cause of the problem?

Local author Bill Greenwell, who has also written books about Marsden and Roker, has researched Evans’ origins in Wales, and also traced the stages of the downfall that eventually saw him reduced to living in poverty in a Laygate hostel. He has also used modern DNA techniques and contact with Evans’ descendants to bring his life into close focus.

The book also explores the life in South Shields of the Laygate headmistress, Ellen Nicholson, whose career Evans helped to bring to an end after she married ‘without permission’.

The fully-illustrated A4 book, which is called The Teacher, the Board and the Villainous Vicar, (Sunnyside Press) will sell for £15. You can hear much more about Evans when Bill Greenwell introduces the book in a talk to the South Shields Local History Group on Monday September 16th, at 5.00 p.m. The talk is upstairs in Room A, Cleadon Park Library, Prince Edward Road, Harton. Entry is only £1.

The book will be on sale at The Word bookshop.