Silvanus Bevan

Silvanus Bevan (1691-1765) was born into a prosperous Welsh Quaker family. He left Swansea as a young man and moved to Cheapside, in London. He obtained his "Freedom" from the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in 1715 having served his seven years’ apprenticeship with Thomas Mayleigh. He established his Pharmacy in Plough Court, Lombard Street, which he rented from Salem Osgood, a Quaker merchant. A previous tenant had been Alexander Pope, a Linendraper, whose son, the famous poet, was born in the old house in 1688. William Cookworthy was one of his apprentices.

In 1715 he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Daniel Quare, the royal clockmaker. His wedding was attended by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, Lord Finch, Lady Cartwright, William Penn, the Venetian ambassador and his wife.

His business prospered and he was joined by his younger brother, Timothy Bevan (1704-1786). In 1725 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1743 his letter entitled “An Account of an Extraordinary Case of the Bones of a Woman Growing Soft and Flexible”, was printed in their Philosophical Transactions. It describes his findings having performed a post-mortem examination.

Silvanus Bevan was a skilled carver of ivory and several busts of well-known men are still in existence (he sent one to Lord Cobham, when he was seeking likenesses for statues for his garden at Stowe House.

Further Reading

• The Monthly Record, 15 March 1873, No 46, Vol IV.
• 'Wedgwood, Flaxman, and an English eighteenth-century portrait carver, Silvanus Bevan.'" Hugh Tait. Proceedings of the Wedgwood Society, No 3 1959. pp.126-132.
• G. Tweedale, At the Sign of the Plough: 275 years of Allen & Hanburys and the British pharmaceutical industry, 1715–1990 (1990).
• A. A. Locke and A. Esdaile, Plough Court: the story of a notable pharmacy, 1715–1927, rev. E. C. Cripps (1927).
• D. Chapman-Huston and E. C. Cripps, Through a City archway: the story of Allen and Hanburys, 1715–1954 (1954).
• Audrey Nona Gamble, A history of the Bevan family [1924].
• The letters of Lewis, Richard, William and John Morris of Anglesey, ed. J. H. Davies, 2 vols. (1907–9).
• J. Burnby, ‘A study of the English apothecary from 1660 to 1760’, Medical History, suppl. 3 (1983) [whole issue].
• Jonathan Marsden. 'William Penn and Sir Francis Dashwood’s Sawmill'”. Georgian Group Journal, vol. VIII 1998, pp.143-150.

Colourman 17:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

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