Llewellyn David Bevan

Llewellyn David Bevan (11 September 1842 – 19 July 1918) was a Welsh Congregationalist minister whose pastorates included New York City and Melbourne, Victoria. He was the first principal of Parkin College, the Congregational seminary in Adelaide, South Australia.

History

Bevan was born in Llanelly, Carmarthenshire, to Hopkin Bevan, an actuary, and his wife Eliza née Davies, daughter of a Congregationalist minister.^[1] His father came from a family with a long Nonconformist history: he claimed descent from the Independent minister Lewis Rees (1710–1800) and his wife Esther Penry, a descendent of John Penry, the Nonconformist martyr in the days of Queen Elizabeth.^[2]

He was brought up in an intellectual household and enjoyed the public lectures on science and literature that were regularly held at the mechanics' institutes of the day, and he and his young friends dreamed of one day becoming lecturers themselves.^[2] He was later educated at University College, London, whose head master was the philologist T. H. Key. Bevan was boarding in a religious household with a number of eager young ministers. In this environment he decided against Law and for a religious life, influenced by the preaching of Henry Grattan Guinness.^[1] He next went to New College, one of the associated colleges of the University of London, where he took the arts and law with first-class honors in 1863. His instructors included Edwin Lankester, father of Professor Ray Lankester.

After ordination he became assistant minister to the Rev. Thomas Binney, pastor of Weigh-house Chapel, then in 1869 accepted the pastorate of Tottenham Court Road Chapel, built for George Whitefield. In 1874 he took two months off for a pulpit exchange with the minister of the Central Church, Brooklyn, and from 1876 to 1882 served at the Brick Presbyterian Church in New York. In 1882 he returning to England to take charge of the newly erected Congregational chapel at Highbury Quadrant.^[3] While in New York Mrs. Bevan suffered a back injury which ever afterwards made sitting in an ordinary chair uncomfortable for her, which may have influenced^[2] Dr. Bevan's final acceptance of a call to the Collins Street Independent Church, Melbourne. Bevan had declined previous invitations in 1876^[4] and in 1879^[5] following the resignation of the Rev. Thomas Jones, another Welshman.

They sailed to Australia aboard Valetta, arriving at Melbourne in November 1886, and soon made their presence felt. He served at Collins Street with distinction from November 1886 to February 1910. He then accepted a call from the Parkin Congregational Trust to serve as founding principal of Parkin College, a seminary at North Terrace, Kent Town for young Congregational ministers, which owed its existence to an endowment of the Hon. William Parkin.

With locks of snowy whiteness, a ruddy countenance, large overhanging brows and kindly luminous eyes, his personal appearance marked him everywhere as a man of distinction. His greatest charms were to be found in his genial nature, his magnetic personality, his inexhaustible fund of humor, and the versatility of his mind. He was a many sided man, who during a long and useful life gathered a wealth of knowledge on a wide variety of subjects, which made him a living encyclopaedia. There was nothing affecting humanity which did not interest him ...^[2]

His home, rich in its art and literary treasures, was always a centre of social influence. He had in the course of many years' collection assembled fine library, which included a number of old books and manuscripts. His rare pictures and Oriental art specimens were in themselves of great interest to visitors. In all these directions he had the taste and education of a connoisseur. Music, too, afforded him much pleasure. He has left a widow, who, on account of her deeply sympathetic nature, her wide range of culture, and a fine artistic temperament, was able to render him invaluable assistance in life.^[2]

Recognition

• He received an honorary doctorate of Princeton University in 1882.
• George A. J. Webb painted portraits in oils of both Bevan and his wife.

Bibliography

• Louisa Bevan, ed. The Life and Reminiscences of Llewelyn David Bevan (1920) Melbourne.

Family

Llewellyn David Bevan married Louisa Jane Willett (11 April 1944 – 12 September 1933) on 2 April 1870. She was a daughter of Dr. J. Willett of Bishop's Lavington, Wiltshire. Their children included:

• Rev. H(opkin) L(lewellyn) Willett Bevan (26 July 1871 – 28 December 1933) married Beatrice Ellen Amanda Vale ( – 1975) on 31 December 1901. He was pastor at Kilkenny then Gawler (formerly principal of Medhurst College, Shanghai).^[6] She was a daughter of William Mountford Kinsey Vale (1833–1895) and a poet and critic, author of a biography on Adam Lindsay Gordon.^[7]
• David John Davies Bevan (1873 – 1954), as Mr. Justice Bevan, was the first judge of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory
• Professor Louis R(hys) O(xley) Bevan (1874 – 13 October 1946), lecturer on international law and other subjects at Peking University. He died after being struck by a car near his East Melbourne, Victoria home.

• Rosalind Florence Bevan
• Dr. (Louis) Lancelot Oxley Bevan

• (Penry) Vaughan Bevan D.Sc. (1875 – 17 December 1913), was Professor at Royal Holloway College, University of London, a pioneer of research into atomic absorption spectrometry. He died following a surgical operation.^[8]
• Muriel Eliza Marian/Marianne Bevan (December 1876 – 30 September 1955) married Edgar W(illiam) Walker (1879 – 16 October 1942) on 3 December 1901. He was a son of Hon. W. Froggatt Walker, lived in Melbourne.
• (Hester) Gwladys Bevan (1878 – 18 June 1968) married (Charles Phillip) Russell Hurditch (1873 – August 1965) on 22 December 1910, of Beaconsfield, Victoria. He was a son of hymnist and YMCA secretary^[9] Charles Russell Hurditch (20 December 1839 – 1908) and a prominent member of Collins Street Independent Church.
• Dr. Sibyl Caridwen Bevan (1879 – June 1962) was medical doctor at Queen Victoria Hospital, Melbourne then with New South Wales Public Service, and was an acclaimed violinist.
• Dorothy Leigh Bevan (1893 – June 1970) was adopted by the Bevans as a baby. She married Rev. Paul Hamilton Morris Joseph (c. 1888 – 3 May 1918) on 10 November 1913. A Tasmanian, he was pastor of Hindmarsh Congregational Church, then the Hindmarsh Square Congregational Church, the sale of which property he was intimately involved with.^[10] He was killed in France during WWI. She married again, to Hubert Wilkins before 1933, and one more time, to Frederick Duncan Love.^[11]

• Morris Bevan Joseph married Zena May Farnell on 10 February 1938.

Sources

• Niel Gunson, 'Bevan, Llewelyn David (1842–1918)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/bevan-llewelyn-david-5228/text8799, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 22 October 2016.
• "Collins St. Independent Church, Melbourne 1910 (booklet)". Retrieved 22 October 2016. 

References