George Evans

George Samuel Evans (3 June 1802 – 23 September 1868), was a barrister, editor, and politician in New Zealand and colonial Australia. He was for some time a Minister of the Crown in the Colony of Victoria.

Early life Evans was from Gloucester, England, the son of Nonconformist minister Rev. George Evans. He gained university degrees in Glasgow and was admitted to the Bar in 1837. Around this time he became associated with Colonel William Wakefield and his colonisation schemes. In July 1837, Wakefield brought two Maori, Te Naiti and Te Hiakai, to England from France. Te Hiakai, a brother of Iwi Kau of Banks Peninsula, stayed with Evans and his family for eight months before dying of consumption. Evans decided to go out with the first party of New Zealand Company settlers to Wellington (Port Nicholson) with Wakefield, who had selected the site on Cook Strait in the previous year. Te Naiti went with the expedition. The new colonists' settlement at Petone was prone to flooding so Evans called a public meeting and insisted that the newly arrived settlers move around the harbour to what is now Thorndon. Evans was in a sense the "father" of Wellington, and was known by Maori as 'Nui Nui rangatira' ('great chief'). He was Postmaster-General of Victoria from March 1858 to October 1859. When Sir Charles Gavan Duffy left the Government in March 1859, Dr. Evans took the additional portfolio of Minister of Lands, which he held till the dissolution of the Cabinet in October 1859. Evans represented Avoca from October 1859 to July 1861 and Maryborough from October 1861 to August 1864. In the third O’Shanassy Government Dr. Evans was Postmaster-General from December 1861 to June 1863. He was for a considerable period editor of the Melbourne Herald. Evans died at Wellington on 23 September 1868 and was buried at Bolton Street Cemetery.