EVANS, John Dunlop (1843-1930) of Belleville, Ont. was born in Goderich, Ont. on 27 May 1843. He was brought to Toronto as a youth and educated at Upper Canada College. Evans articled with the Toronto surveyors Unwin & Miles and in 1867 moved to Belleville where he first advertised as 'Provincial Land Surveyor, Civil Engineer and Draughtsman'. In 1870 he began to offer his services as an architect (Daily Intelligencer [Belleville], 2 July 1870, 2, advert.). The following year he prepared a creditable design for the Union School there, and within a few months had obtained the commission for the City Hall, BELLEVILLE, ONT., an ambitious and convincing interpretation of the High Victorian Gothic which was to become one of the most important landmarks of civic architecture in Canada. Envious of the city hall & market complex in neighbouring Kingston, the local council commissioned Evans to prepare plans for the City Hall & Market in Belleville in 1871, and paid him a salary of $250 to oversee the work of the contractor (and another local architect) John Forin, who is often mistakenly credited with the design. After 1878 he formed a partnership with Thomas O. Bolger, but in 1881 their firm was dissolved and Evans moved to Trenton to take up his new appointment as Chief Engineer of the Central Ontario Railway Co., a post that included responsibility for the design of several railway stations on the line including those at Gilmour, Wellington and Bloomfield, Ont., as well as the Trenton headquarters of the company completed in 1903. Evans retired in 1925 and moved to Toronto where he died on 7 November 1930 (obit. Mail & Empire [Toronto], 8 Nov. 1930, 6; biog. and port. Annual Reports of the Association of Ontario Land Surveyors, 1930, 117-18)
J.D. EVANS
BELLEVILLE, ONT., five houses on Ann Street for an unidentified client, 1870 (Intelligencer [Belleville], 31 May 1870, 2, t.c.)
BELLEVILLE, ONT., Union School, 1871-72 (Intelligencer [Belleville], 28 July 1871, 2; Daily Ontario [Belleville], 16 Oct. 1871, 2, t.c.)
BELLEVILLE, ONT., Town Hall & Market Building, Front Street, 1871-73 (Daily Intelligencer [Belleville], 30 Nov. 1871, 2, descrip.; G.E. Boyce, Belleville City Hall, 1988, 19-24, illus. & descrip.)
TRENTON, ONT., Union School, 1873 (Trenton Courier, 10 July 1873, 3, t.c.)
MARMORA, ONT., Methodist Church, 1874 (inf. United Church Archives, Toronto)
BELLEVILLE, ONT., St. George's Church, Station Road, 1875 (Daily Intelligencer [Belleville], 20 Dec. 1875, 2)
EVANS & BOLGER
BELLEVILLE, ONT., reconstruction of St. Thomas Anglican Church, Bridge Street at Church Street, 1878-79 (Daily Intelligencer [Belleville], 12 Nov. 1878, 2, t.c.)
BELLEVILLE, ONT., residence for A.A. Farley, Bridge Street East at Bleeker Avenue, 1879 (Daily Intelligencer [Belleville], 23 October 1879, 2, t.c.)
BELLEVILLE, ONT., Roberston Block, Front Street, 1879 (Daily Intelligencer [Belleville], 15 Dec. 1879, 1, descrip.)
MADOC, ONT., residence for Dr. W.A. Dafoe, 1880 (North Hastings Review [Madoc], 13 May 1880, 4, t.c.)
MADOC, ONT., parsonage for St. John's Anglican Church, 1880 (North Hastings Review [Madoc], 1 July 1880, 4, t.c.)