Admiral Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans, 1st Baron Mountevans, (28 October 1880 – 20 August 1957) was a Royal Navy officer and Antarctic explorer.H. G. Thursfield, 'Evans, Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell, first Baron Mountevans (1880–1957)', rev. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011.
Evans was seconded from the navy to the Discovery expedition to Antarctica in 1901–1904, when he served on the crew of the relief ship, and afterwards began planning his own Antarctic expedition. However, he suspended this plan when offered the post of second-in-command on Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole in 1910–1913, as captain of the expedition ship . He accompanied Scott to within 150 miles of the Pole, but was sent back in command of the last supporting party. On the return he became seriously ill with scurvy and only narrowly survived.
After the expedition Evans toured the country giving lectures, and returned to his naval duties as a commander in the summer of 1914. He spent the First World War as a destroyer captain, becoming famous as "Evans of the Broke" after the battle of Dover Strait in 1917. He commanded a cruiser at Hong Kong in 1921–1922, where he was awarded a medal for his role in rescuing passengers from the wrecked vessel , and then spent several years commanding the Home Fisheries Protection Squadron before being given command of the modern battlecruiser . He later commanded the Australian Squadron and the Africa Station before becoming Commander-in-Chief, The Nore, one of the Navy's senior Home Commands; during this time, unusually for a serving officer, he was also Rector of the University of Aberdeen.
After four years at the Nore, Evans handed over command in early 1939, and was appointed Civil Defence Commissioner for London during the preparations for the Second World War; after the German invasion of Norway he travelled there to liaise with King Haakon VII, a personal acquaintance. He remained in a civil defence role throughout the War, though he had officially retired from the Navy in 1941, and was raised to the peerage in 1945, sitting in the House of Lords as a Labour member.
Early life Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans, known to his family and friends as "Teddy", was born in London on 28 October 1880, at a mews near Berkeley Square. He was the second of three sons born to Frank Evans and his wife Eliza, née McNulty.www.burkespeerage.com Frank Evans, a young barrister at Lincoln's Inn, hailed from a large Lancashire family of Welsh descent; his father had been a provision merchant in Oldham. Eliza McNulty's family were of Irish origin and lived at Deptford.Pound, pp. 1–3.
The family were respectably middle-class, but the three Evans children did not behave as respectably as might be expected; when Edward was nine, he and his brothers frequently roamed far into the East End, on one occasion being detained by the police after a theft. Edward and his older brother Joe were admitted to the Merchant Taylors' School in 1890, when he was ten, and were expelled for fighting and truancy a year later. He was then sent to a relatively modern school in the countryside near Croydon, which aimed to educate "troublesome boys";Pound, p. 5. despite being the youngest boy and often victimised and homesick, he enjoyed the rural environment and responded well to the teaching. He later attended a school in Maida Vale where he obtained high marks but slipped back into his old misbehaviour; the headmaster responded by making him a prefect, which shocked Evans into self-discipline. He became one of the school's star performers, with a string of prizes, before leaving at 14.Pound, pp. 3–8.
Evans sought a career at sea, and while at school had tried, but failed, to obtain a cadetship with the Royal Navy training ship . The alternatives open to him were to be "crammed" by an expensive tutor and resit the Britannia examination, or to attend the cheaper privately run training ship HMS Worcester, which mainly trained officers for the Merchant Navy. His father chose the latter, and Evans joined the Worcester in January 1895. He was heavily bullied, but by the middle of his second year had found his place, and gained a reputation as an able and diligent – if still troublesome – cadet. He won several prizes, culminating in a coveted Navy cadetship in his final year.Pound, pp. 8–13.
As a Midshipman Evans was posted to the cruiser in the Mediterranean in 1897, a ship noted for her immaculate presentation and strict conduct, which was not entirely to Evans' taste. In August he became seriously ill with brucellosis, after drinking contaminated milk, and was sent home to recover for three months. During this time, he gained a lasting fanaticism for physical fitness, walking forty or fifty miles in a day and swimming for hours in the sea; he would maintain this state of fitness for decades to come. After returning to duty, he was posted to the battleship and then the sloop , following which he was examined and passed as a sub-lieutenant. He then studied at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, interrupted with a posting to , where he first encountered then-Lieutenant Robert Falcon Scott.Pound, pp. 14–19.
First Antarctic expedition, 1902–1904
In July 1901, the British National Antarctic Expedition – the "Discovery Expedition" – sailed from London aboard , with Scott in command. Part of the planning for the expedition had provided for a relief ship to follow a year later, in case Discovery was lost in the Antarctic; on reading a newspaper article about this some months later, Evans saw an opportunity for adventure and wrote to Sir Clements Markham, the organising force behind the expedition. He met Markham twice in the following weeks, and made a strong impression. In early 1902, Evans was seconded from the Navy to be second officer aboard the relief ship, the , an ageing ex-whaler.Pound, pp. 23–26.
The Morning sailed from London in July 1902, and after a severe storm and a refit in Christchurch, New Zealand, headed for the Antarctic on 6 December to search for the expedition in their winter quarters, somewhere in the Ross Sea.Pound, pp. 29–32. After working steadily south-east from Cape Adare and along the ice-front to Cape Crozier, the limit of their search range, they found a message from the expedition, directing them back towards McMurdo Sound. Here the two crews met – the two ships were separated by fifteen miles of ice, requiring long sledge journeys – with Evans among the first party to greet the Discoverys crew. A week later, Scott, Ernest Shackleton, and Edward Wilson returned from their journey inland, sick with scurvy and snow-blindness, but triumphant at having reached 82°17′S, a new "Farthest South". Evans privately recorded that having known the three was "a great thing in my life".Pound, pp. 36–43. While in the Antarctic, Evans was promoted to lieutenant on 31 December 1902.
At the end of March 1903 the Morning was ordered to return, leaving supplies with the Discovery, still sealed in the ice. Several crew were exchanged, including Shackleton, who was considered not healthy enough to remain for the winter, though personal conflicts with Scott may have played a part in the decision. Once back in New Zealand, Evans applied for a temporary posting to stationed in the country, while the Morning was refitted for another relief voyage, this time organised by the Admiralty rather than the Royal Geographical Society. She sailed south again in November, in company with a second relief ship, Terra Nova, and met the Discovery in January 1904. Evans was given charge of a party of men laying explosives to blast a channel through eight miles of ice, which they achieved in eleven days, bringing the Discovery out just before a heavy gale struck.Pound, pp. 45–51. In recognition of his work with the expedition, Scott named a mountain overlooking the Sound as Mount Evans.
Shortly before sailing south for the second time, Evans' engagement to a New Zealand woman, Hilda Russell, had been announced. Hilda was the daughter of T. G. Russell, a prominent local solicitor, and the niece of George Russell, one of the Members of Parliament for the Christchurch area. Evans arrived back in Christchurch on 1 April 1904, and the couple were married on 13 April. They arrived back in England in October, where Evans was awarded the Bronze Polar Medal and rejoined the navy, specialising as a navigation officer. In 1907 he briefly considered applying to join Shackleton's Antarctic expedition, but decided instead that it was important to spend more time in his naval career, to avoid limiting his future prospects.Pound, pp. 47, 51–53.
Second Antarctic expedition, 1910–1913
In 1909, Evans finally succumbed to the lure of the Antarctic, and announced – with Markham's blessing – that he would organise an expedition to explore King Edward VII Land. He planned an expedition to the Pole, but as a secondary objective; "the circum-navigation of the great Antarctic continent appealed to me far more".Evans (1946), p. 80. Evans initially sought support in Cardiff for a Welsh National Antarctic Expedition. Around the same time, Scott began planning a new expedition in response to Shackleton's recently completed Nimrod Expedition – the two were by this time rivals – and on hearing of this Evans abandoned his own project, transferring his funding and support to Scott. In return, Scott appointed him second-in-command. Evans brought so much Cardiff and Welsh sponsorship that Scott named Cardiff the home port of the expedition ship, Terra Nova and made Evans Captain. Despite this partnership, the two were never close, with the clash between Scott's reserve and Evans' openness accentuated by the difference in rank and age.Pound, pp. 53–56, 63–64. Scott later described Evans in his diary as carried by "boyish enthusiasms" and "well-meaning, but terribly slow to learn",Pound, p. 81. deeming that he was much more capable as a sailor than an explorer on land, and probably would never be suited to command his own expedition.Pound, pp. 81–2.
The expedition landed on the west side of Ross Island on 4 January 1911,Pound, p. 72. at a site Scott named Cape Evans in Evans' honour. Evans joined the main shore party, leaving the Terra Nova in the hands of Lieutenant Harry Pennell, and worked to establish a series of depots along the Great Ice Barrier for the use of the Polar expedition later in the year.Pound, pp. 72–80. After wintering in the Cape Evans hut, the party began to prepare for the main journey in August and September. Evans was given command of the Motor Party, which was to leave first, taking four men and two tracked motor sledges south onto the Barrier with supplies for the main expedition, which would follow with dogs and ponies.Pound, pp. 84–88.