Caleb Evans

Caleb Evans (1737-1791) was baptized at Little Wild Street in London in 1758. He assisted Josiah Thompson at Unicorn Yard, Southwark, for a year, studying under John Conder at the Mile End Academy. He returned to Broadmead in Bristol in 1759, first as assistant then later as co-pastor to his father, Hugh Evans. After his father’s death, Caleb Evans served as senior pastor at Broadmead from 1781 to 1791. He became involved with the work of the Academy as well, helping to found the Bristol Education Society in 1770. In 1779 he was named Principal of the Academy, a post he held until his death. Evans read widely in the Puritans and the classics and was an evangelical Calvinist (like his friend Robert Hall, Sr.), passing that tradition on to the young preachers he trained at Bristol. He also had a keen interest in itinerant preaching and evangelism. His writings include numerous sermons, as well as some controversial political tracts, such as A Letter to Mr Wesley (1776), concerning the American war; also a Collection of Hymns Adapted to Public Worship (1769), with John Ash. His first wife was Sarah Jeffries of Taunton (d. 1771); his second wife was Sarah Hazle (d. 1817) of Bristol. See Norman S. Moon, “Caleb Evans, Founder of the Bristol Education Society,” Baptist Quarterly 24 (1971-1972), 175-190; idem, Education for Ministry: Bristol Baptist College, 1679-1979 (Bristol: Bristol Baptist College, 1979), 10-26; Kirk Wellum, “Caleb Evans (1737-1791),” in The British Particular Baptists, ed. Michael A. G. Haykin, 5 vols (Springfield, MO: Particular Baptist Press, 1998-2019), 1:213-233; Roger Hayden, Continuity and Change: Evangelical Calvinism among Eighteenth-Century Baptist Ministers trained at Bristol Academy, 1690–1791 (London: Baptist Historical Society, for Roger Hayden, 2006), 123-141.