Shaun was appointed Director of ISWE in 2015 with responsibilities for the overseeing the management, strategic direction and intellectual development of the research centre.
He grew up on the Mostyn estate in Flintshire, where his dad works as a forester. Shaun studied History at York before undertaking a doctoral research project at Aberystwyth University on the dynastic identity of the Mostyn family and estate in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Following the award of his PhD he worked in the Research Team at The National Archives, with responsibilities for research programmes and academic engagement strategy, prior to taking up his position at Bangor University.
Shaun is a historian of gentry culture and landed estates in Wales across the period c.1500-1900. His research on the social and cultural history of landownership provides a prism for assessing wider questions about identity, heritage, social relations, ancestry and issues of power, status and authority in Wales. He is also interested in the interplay between local, Welsh, British and European identities, and the relationships between ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’. Gentry identities, landowner-tenant relations and estate landscapes represent important focuses in his work. His interests in the visual, material and performative cultures of country houses are reflected in his studies of heraldry, heirlooms and commemorative practice, vernacular portraiture, libraries and the materiality of archives.
His approach to research is inherently collaborative and interdisciplinary. He enjoys working with cultural heritage partners on collections-based research projects which have impact beyond academia, including in the sphere of heritage interpretation. He is a strong advocate of public history methodologies and meaningful community engagement. He also enjoys supervising doctoral projects. These elements are all embedded in ISWE’s wider strategy and approach.
Beyond his roles at Bangor University, Shaun Chaired the North East Wales Heritage Forum from its foundation in 2015-22, served as Member of the Council of Flintshire Historical Society from 2013-24, as Trustee of the Discovering Old Welsh Houses Group from 2017-24 and Patron of the Friends of Clwyd Archives from 2017-22. He is currently Reviews Editor for the Welsh History Review, a member of the Advisory Committee for the RCAHMW List of Historic Place Names of Wales initiative, and Advisory Board member for the European Research Council funded Mapping the Medieval March project.
To get in touch with Shaun please see the Contact Us section of the website.
Publications
2023
- Shaun Evans, ‘‘‘An antient seat of a gentleman in Wales’’: The place of the plas in Thomas Pennant’s Tour in Wales (1778-83)’, in Christopher Ridgway and Terence Dooley (eds.), Visitors to the Country House in Ireland and Britain: Welcome and Unwelcome (Dublin, 2023), pp. 196-219.
2022
- Shaun Evans, ‘Book Cultures, Gentry Identities and the Welsh Country House Library: Problems and Possibilities for Future Research’, Welsh History Review 30:1 (2022), 17-54.
- Shaun Evans, Tony McCarthy and Annie Tindley (eds.), Land Reform in the British and Irish Isles since 1800 (Edinburgh, 2022).
- Shaun Evans, '‘‘The battle of the Welsh nation against landlordism’’: The Response of the North Wales Property Defence Association to the Welsh Land Question, c.1886-1896’ in Shaun Evans, Tony McCarthy and Annie Tindley (eds.), Land Reform in the British and Irish Isles since 1800 (Edinburgh, 2022), pp. 259-284.
2021
- Shaun Evans, ‘Coming of Age: Landowners and Tenants in nineteenth-century Carmarthenshire’, The Carmarthen Antiquary 57 (2021), 76-89.
2019
- Shaun Evans, ‘Gruffudd Hiraethog, Heraldic Display and the “five courts” of Mostyn: Projecting Status, Honour and Authority in sixteenth-century Wales’, in Fiona Robertson and Peter Lindfield (eds.), The Display of Heraldry: The Heraldic Imagination in Arts and Culture (The Heraldry Society, 2019), pp. 116-133.