Sir Samuel Thomas Evans

Today is the centenary of the great jurist's death. There is more here, here and here.

[Later]

There was a short commemoration service at the church of St John the Baptist in Skewen this morning. Because it had not dawned upon most of us involved until close to the date, it was too late to arrange official participation from the Welsh Liberal Democrats, the successor party to Sir Sam's Liberals. However, I managed to catch at the graveside the representatives of the Skewen Historical Society who had attended

 along with Jeremy Stuehmeyer, who is not only a collateral descendant of the Evans family but also a professional drawer-up of family trees.

Jeremy spared the time before his long drive back to Harrogate to relate some of the interesting experiences he had in his genealogical work as well as decrying the inaccuracies introduced to popular TV programmes in the cause of spicing up the presentation. In return, the local historians were able to fill in the historical background of the Skewen of Sir Samuel's days.

Spurred on to do some more research myself, I came across the report in The Cambrian of 14th February 1890 of plain Samuel Evans's successful candidacy for parliament at his first attempt:

and I like this description of his parliamentary career from an obituary notice in a later publication:

Among the targets of his wordy warfare was no less a figure than the Grand Old Man himself, WE Gladstone.