Robert Evans (1773 to 1849)

George Eliot was born Mary Ann Evans in Nuneaton on 22 November 1819. Her father Robert Evans was the manager of the Arbury Hall Estate for the Newdigate family. Mary Ann was born on the estate at South Farm. Several characters in Eliot’s novels are in some way based on her father, including Adam Bede and Caleb Garth in Middlemarch.