Matilda Jane EVANS

EVANS, MATILDA JANE (née CONGREVE, pseud. MAUD JEANNE FRANC) (b. Surrey, England, 7 Aug 1827; d. Prospect, SA, 22 Oct 1886). Novelist and schoolteacher.

Matilda, oldest surviving child of Henry Congreve, chemist, and Elizabeth, nee Jacob, of Peckham, Surrey, arrived in Adelaide as an assisted immigrant in July 1852, with her father, her sister Emily and youngest brothers, Frederick and James. Two brothers, Henry and William, had emigrated in 1849. Her mother died on the voyage out, and her father in Dec 1852, leaving Matilda responsible for the family. She had already opened a school in North Adelaide and from 1854 to 1860 she kept schools in the Mt Barker district. During this time she began her career as the writer 'Maud Jeanne Franc'. Marian or The Light of Someone's Home, was published by Alfred Waddy at Mount Barker in four parts in 1859. It was well received, going into a second edition by the second part. The story of the influence of a devout Christian governess on an aspiring colonial family, this book introduced one of Franc's major themes - the necessity for commitment to Christ of both partners in marriage.

On 16 Feb 1860 at Zion Chapel, Adelaide Matilda married Ephraim Evans, Baptist pastor of Nuriootpa. When he died suddenly on 6 April 1863 she was left with four small children two from her husband's first marriage and her own two sons. She opened a boarding school for young ladies in Angaston, later moving to Buxton Street, North Adelaide, where she conducted a similar school, Angaston House from 1869 to 1882. From 1883 until her death she served as a deaconess of the North Adelaide Baptist Church.

Matilda Evans contributed stories, essays and poems to the Australian Evangelist, the South Australian Temperance Herald, the Christian Colonist, Truth and Progress and the Chronicle. Fourteen novels were published in England by Sampson Low, seven of them having first appeared as serials in Australian papers. Although now regarded primarily as girls' books, they were widely read, and maintained their popularity as prizes and Sunday school readers for many years. Their strong religious and temperance message was combined with realistic colonial domestic settings and steadfast female characters. Marian, always the most popular, was reissued at least 17 times. In 1888 an attractive collected edition was published, and another appeared early in the 1900s. Six titles including Vermont Vale (1866), Emily's Choice (1867), and Minnie's Mission (1869), were reissued in the late 1920s

Matilda Evans died of peritonitis, leaving two journalist sons, Henry Congreve Evans (1860-99), later editor of Quiz, and William James Evans (1862-1904), theatre critic. All three of them were much loved for their amiability and sweetness of nature. Matilda was of a gentle unassuming disposition, but her energy and selflessness made her a devoted helper in the work of the church. Her whole life as a woman and as a writer was devoted to the promotion of Christian living in society.

ADB 4; SRSA GRG 50 1852-60; Bunyip (Gawler) 29 Oct 1886

BARBARA WALL