Evans, Jeremy

Jeremy Lancelotte Evans (b.1951) is a horologist and expert on seventeenth and eighteenth-century clocks. He is regarded as the foremost authority on the life and work of Thomas Tompion, having built that knowledge over more than three decades working in the Clocks and Watches department of the British Museum. He is the author of Thomas Tompion at the Dial and Three Crowns (AHS, 2006) and co-author, with Jonathan Carter and Ben Wright, of Thomas Tompion: 300 Years (Water Lane, 2013). He also wrote a number of articles for Antiquarian Horology as well as the Dictionary of National Biography entries for George Graham, Daniel Quare and Thomas Tompion.

Jeremy was born in Hitchin and grew up in Pirton, attending Pirton Primary School, and then Bessemer School for Boys. His father was the North Hertfordshire librarian and curator of local museums at Hitchin and Stevenage, and his mother collected nineteenth-century American shelf clocks. Jeremy was an avid collector with wide interests by the age of nine, and he bought his first clocks in local junk shops in his early teens, beginning a lifelong fascination with horology.

After a short spell working for Woolworths in 1966–67, he joined Pyman Jewellers in Letchworth, staying from 1967 to 1970, where he worked on clock, watch and jewellery repairs. The firm paid for him to attend Hackney Technical Collage, Dalston Lane, on a day-release basis for three years, where he took a first class in his finals.
A short spell at Thwaites & Reed in 1969–70 led to joining the British Museum in July 1971. He worked in the Clocks and Watches Department alongside other well-known figures over time, such as Beresford Hutchinson, John Leopold, and latterly David Thompson, before retiring in December 2005. His horological career has been marked by a strong research focus, and he has always been a phenomenal compiler of lists, whether of serial numbers, dates, newspaper references, and much more.

His family moved to the house in Pirton in 1953 which Jeremy and his sisters have retained, and where he has lived with a long line of faithful dogs as companions, the most recent of which is Eddy, a Welsh terrier.

View collection: EVA - EVANS, JEREMY

Image courtesy of Victoria Kitchiner.