EVELYN, George (1617-99), of Wotton, Surr.

The Evelyns migrated from Middlesex to Surrey in the early sixteenth century. The MP’s grandfather, also George Evelyn (d.1603), obtained from Elizabeth I a monopoly for the manufacture of gunpowder and had mills at Long Ditton, Godstone and Wotton. His resulting fortune enabled him to establish branches of his family at all three places; Wotton descended to Richard, his fourth and youngest surviving son.18H. Evelyn, History of the Evelyn Family (1915), 14, 17-26. Possessed of this large and attractively-situated estate, Richard, the MP’s father, had joined the commission of the peace by 1623 and served as sheriff for the counties of Surrey and Sussex in 1634–5.19Hist. of the Evelyn Family, 29; Evelyn Diary, ii. 2, 4.

Evelyn himself was the eldest of Richard’s three sons, John Evelyn the diarist being the second. After several years at Oxford, in 1637 George was admitted to the Middle Temple, according to his brother, with ‘no intention to study the law as a profession’. Once he inherited Wotton in December 1640 – perhaps too late and too unexpectedly for him to be a candidate in the autumn elections – he settled down to the life of a hospitable and well-respected country gentleman.20Al. Ox.; MT Admiss. i. 132; Evelyn Diary, v. 358.

Although the Evelyn brothers may all have hung back from involvement at the start of the civil war, the conflict eventually divided them to a greater extent than is immediately apparent from John’s diary. In November 1642 the diarist took a horse and arms to the king’s forces at Brentford, but, arriving too late to participate in the battle there, quietly retreated so as not to compromise himself and his family to no purpose; he then sent a horse to the royalists at Oxford in June 1643.21Evelyn Diary, ii. 79-81. On the other hand, from February that year George was nominated to various parliamentarian offices in Surrey, including as a sequestration commissioner.22A. and O. At the beginning of July both George and John visited their older first cousin, Sir John Evelyn of Surrey* at Godstone, but although Sir John may already have been entertaining the thoughts of defection to the king of which he was accused in August and for which he was temporarily excluded from the House, from the summer through to Sir John’s rehabilitation the following year, George continued to receive appointments with a regularity suggesting at least some active engagement in the cause.23Evelyn Diary, ii. 81. On 24 July 1643 he was among several gentlemen added to the ordinance for raising forces in Surrey and he was on subsequent county committees.24CJ iii. 180a; A. and O. He was somewhat slow in paying the assessment in 1644, but in his locality he was hardly alone in this.25CCAM 349-50.

On 3 September 1645 a warrant was ordered for an election at Reigate to replace Sir Thomas Bludder*, who had been disabled as a royalist.26CJ iv. 262b. Within the next five weeks Evelyn was returned to sit for the borough, which was some nine miles to the east of Wotton. A petition from the sheriff, Sir Matthew Brand, alleging that Evelyn had sent horse to the king was presented to the Commons on 10 October, but while the matter was investigated he took the Covenant (29 Oct.) with other recruiter Members.27CJ iv. 303b, 326a. On 17 December, two days after his assessment (£1,000) had again come to the passing notice of the Committee for Advance of Money, Brand’s petition was referred to the Committee for Examinations, where it was eventually dismissed.28CCAM 661; CJ iv. 378b, 379a.

Compared with his kinsmen the two Sir John Evelyns, George left little trace in the Journal. His first committee appointment was to raise money for the forces of Major-general Richard Browne II* in the south central counties (3 Mar. 1646).29CJ iv. 461a. His second and last came six months later, to look into the Newcastle election (11 Sept.).30CJ iv. 666b. However, his brother’s diary suggests he was in the habit of being regularly in London and he was never recorded as an absentee from Parliament.

In February 1648 Evelyn was named as an elder in the Dorking classis – probably a reflection more of political than religious Presbyterianism, since he probably shared his brother John’s preference for Prayer Book services.31Shaw, Hist. English Church, ii. 433. By October he entertained ‘great hopes’ that the proposed Treaty of Newport might ‘yet produce something like a settlement’. Wary of unexpected overtures from Ralph Warcupp, the secretary to the peace commissioners despatched to the Isle of Wight by the Speaker, William Lenthall*, he recounted that he had told Warcupp that he ‘had nothing to do there, as being no person that could pretend anything to state affairs’ but that ‘for my relation’s sake (whom he very well knew), I should neither spare charge nor pains, knew I but how in the least proportion to promote his designs’.32Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, ed. W. Bray (1906), 549. Whether this indicated allegiance to Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire or to some other person is unclear.

Excluded at Pride’s Purge, Evelyn still made occasional visits to London and may have witnessed first hand the execution of Charles I.33A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); Evelyn Diary, ii. 547. Soon afterwards he was reported as being sympathetic to a royalist uprising.34Evelyn Diary, iv. 433. However, nothing came of this and he spent the next eleven years in retirement on his estate, where John helped him make improvements to his notable garden.35Evelyn Diary, iii. 60-1; Aubrey, Surr. iv. 116. He made no recorded contribution to the proceedings of the restored Long Parliament.

Evelyn was not elected to the Convention but, after a double return, was chosen at Haslemere in 1661. Having shown moderation in measures against Protestant nonconformists but opposition to papists in public life, he sat as an exclusionist for the county in 1679. Out of favour during the reign of James II, he was then again a knight of the shire in 1689. Despite his increasing age and ill-health, in February 1694 his brother failed to persuade the lord lieutenant to substitute their cousin George Evelyn II† of Nutfield as deputy lieutenant.36HP Commons 1660-1690; Evelyn Diary, v. 169-70.

Evelyn died on 4 October 1699, having been predeceased by both of his sons who reached adulthood. Since neither left male heirs, the Wotton estate passed to the diarist, who celebrated his brother as ‘a most worthy gentleman, religious, sober and temperate’, beloved by the whole county for his hospitality. The MP’s only surviving daughter, Mary, wife of Sir Cyril Wyche, arranged a funeral ‘of extraordinary solemnity’, attended by over 2,000 mourners.37Evelyn Diary, v. 357-9. The diarist’s grandson and namesake sat in Parliament for Helston between 1708 and 1710.38HP Commons 1690-1715, s.v. ‘Evelyn, John II’.