Evans is listed in the 1841 census under the name of Edward. The next time he appears in any documents is when he married Deborah Wark on 28 November 1849 – the marriage took place in Ballyshannon, Donegal. Evans and Deborah returned to Glasgow and appear on the 1851 census where Evans’s occupation is described as a “Labourer Gas Work”.
The next event that is documented is the marriage of Evans to Jane Lamb on 7 August 1857. The marriage certificate states that Evans is a widower and Jane is a widow. I have been unable to trace any record of Deborah’s death.
A happy event for Evans and Jane occurred on 29 September 1857 when their son, Evans was born. Unfortunately their good fortune did not last too long when Jane died on 10 December 1859 of a gastric fever at the age of thirty two. During the three week fever she gave birth to a stillborn child.
Evans only outlived Jane by a few months when he died on 13 March 1860 of Bronchitis at the age of thirty three. The final tragic event for this family was when Evans junior died on 21 July 1860. He was less than three years old. Evans’s brother Richard registered the death. The small family of Evans Jenkins is shown here.
Evans’s life experience was not uncommon amongst the many tens of thousands of working class people who lived in the middle of the nineteenth century in Glasgow with poor living and working conditions as well as a second class, almost non-existent health care service.
The next brother I will look at is David.