Timothy Evans - Early Life

Early Life

Evans was a native of Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales. His biological father abandoned the family in 1924 shortly before Evans's birth. Evans had an older sister Eileen and a younger half-sister Maureen, born when Evans's mother re-married in 1929. As a child, Evans had difficulty learning to speak and struggled at school. Following an accident when he was eight, Evans developed a tubercular verruca on his right foot which never completely healed and which caused him to miss considerable amounts of time from school for treatments; this further set back his education. Consequently, he was unable to read or write anything beyond his name as an adult.

In 1935 his mother and her second husband moved to London and Evans worked as a painter and decorator while attending school. He returned to Merthyr Tydfil in 1937 and briefly worked in the coal mines but had to resign because of continuing problems with his foot. In 1939 he returned to London to live again with his mother and in 1946 they moved to St Mark's Road, Notting Hill. This was just over two minutes' walk from 10 Rillington Place, his future residence after he married.