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24. William Downing Evans: Poetry and Poverty in Nineteenth
Century Newport
 William
Downing Evans (1811-97) was a Newport poet, painter, and composer. Using the
Bardic name, ‘Leon’, he wrote in English, but his skill as a translator
revealed a deep knowledge and love of the Welsh language. In many ways he
was lucky to be born when Newport began its industrial expansion, for with
it came prosperity and, for Leon, a wider audience, catered for by local
newspapers, books and pamphlets. But his private life was marred by the
premature death of beloved relatives and close friends, many of them struck
down by diseases that flourished in the rapidly growing town’s crowded,
unsanitary conditions.
The eldest son of a lime burner, Leon was born at Caerleon. He moved to
Newport where, for half a century, he was Registrar of Births, Deaths and
Marriages and Clerk to Newport’s Poor Law Guardians. In these posts he
strived to improve the town’s living conditions, and in 1845 propounded one
of the earliest statistically based arguments for a proper policy on public
health.
A friend of James Flewitt Mullock, one of Newport’s best known artists, Leon
had early ambitions to be a painter, and his first known poem, dated 1836,
appears under a self-portrait. From that time his work was regularly
published in the local press, declaimed or played at Eisteddfodau – where he
won many prizes – or recited or sung at the town’s frequent celebrations and
public functions. Often described as the bard of Newport, Nature drew out
the best of his talent. But he was also an astute observer of the social
scene, and it is this facet of his work that is probably most relevant to
historians today.
Edited
by Ian and Wendy Dear
Published
2011
ISBN
978-0-9553387-4-8
Price: Ł25.00 Members’ price: Ł22.50
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