Lawrence Boyd Evans was born in Radnor, Ohio, descended from Irish and Welsh ancestors. One reached western Pennsylvania just before the Revolution; another, Rev. Evan Evans, came from Whales in 1828; others were of the pioneers who found new homes beyond the Alleghanies.
A year after the birth of Lawrence, his parents moved to Noblesville, Indiana, where in due course he graduated from the high school. He took the degree of Ph. B. in 1894, at the University of Michigan, then, going to the University of Chicago, he was quickly appointed a fellow in political science, and took the degree of Ph. D. in 1898.
Next, after getting in Kansas a beginner’s experience in teaching, he went East to create and head a department of history and public law in Tufts College, where he served as a professor from 1900 to 1912. In entering thus on the life of the scholar, he had doubtless been stimulated by the example of his uncle Edward Payson Evans, who adopted him as his son. Naturally the mind of Lawrence Boyd Evans turned in the same direction. While at Tufts he made a start by editing several of the series known as Handbooks of American Government, and later two volumes of the Writings of American Statesmen, devoted to Washington and Hamilton. Concluding that he should better equip himself for work in the field that particularly attracted him, in 1911 he entered the Harvard Law School, where he passed three years. Going into a Boston law office, he took up the task that was to be his chief interest during the rest of his days the study of public law. Made a member of the commission to compile information for the state constitutional convention which was about to assemble, he contributed much to the value of its Bulletins, which were in the nature of monographs in political science; and to his skill as a legal draftsman was due much of the excellent workmanship to be found in the many amendments that followed. Incidentally, in 1916, he had written a biography of Governor Samuel W. McCall. Their friendship led to the appointment of Evans in December 1917 as state librarian of Massachusetts. However agreeable to his bookish tastes, the routine employment of librarian left him no time for following his bent, and so in 1919 accepted the opportunity to go to Washington as counselor of the Brazilian Embassy, the pleasant duties of which office he performed till his death. As they did not require all his time, he was able also to act as contract expert for the War Department, and then through some years to carry on the delicate task of codifying the navigation laws for the United States Shipping Board. It was while so engaged that he was offered appointment to a judgeship in Egypt as a member of the “Mixed Tribunal, ” but he preferred to stay in his own country. Ready to work with others for the advancement of the scholarly interests he had at heart, he became, while professor at Tufts, the president of the New England History Teachers Association, and he was a member of the American History and American Political Science associations, the American Society of International Law, and the International Law Association, as well as the Authors’ Clubs of Boston and London. Also he served as a member of the Committee on Copyrights of the Section of Patents, Trade Marks and Copyrights of the American Bar Association. In Washington he made his home at the Cosmos Club, where his kindly qualities won him many friends.
member of the commission to compile information for the state constitutional convention
Ready to work with others for the advancement of the scholarly interests he had at heart, he became, while professor at Tufts, the president of the New England History Teachers Association, and he was a member of the American History and American Political Science associations, the American Society of International Law, and the International Law Association, as well as the Authors’ Clubs of Boston and London. Also he served as a member of the Committee on Copyrights of the Section of Patents, Trade Marks and Copyrights of the American Bar Association.
In temperament he was cautious, prudent, careful. Both as a scholar and in personal relations, he was conspicuously conscientious. He took life seriously. His chief satisfaction he found in helping others, and notably in the aid he quietly gave to youths in straitened circumstances who were seeking education.
He never married.
