Charles Evans

Charles Evans (of the Pithay church in Bristol) sailed with Richard Burton in 1820 to Sumatra (both men had studied at Bristol Academy). They were joined the next year by William Robinson (1784-1853) of Olney, who had been working in Java since 1812. Sir Thomas Raffles, then governor of Sumatra, had requested Evans and Burton to open a station at Fort Marlborough, where they were assisted by Nathaniel Ward, William Ward’s nephew. According to Cox, Evans, “finding himself unequal to the combined exertion of conducting the school, and acquiring the native language, removed to Padang.”  After the insurrection in Sumatra in 1825 and the new restrictions imposed upon missionaries there, Evans was forced to retire from Padang. Suffering now from ill health, he returned to England. See F. A. Cox, History of the Baptist Missionary Society, from 1792 to 1842, 2 vols. (London: T. Ward, and G. and J. Dyer, 1842), 1:353.