Silvanus Bevan the ‘Quaker FRS’ (1691–1765) apothecary with a note on his contribution to the founding of the pharmaceutical company Allen and Hanbury

Silvanus Bevan was born in Swansea, South Wales, moved to London where he trained as an apothecary, and then in 1715 opened a business at Plough Court off Lombard Street in London. As a committed Quaker he was renowned for honesty and fair-trading and consequently he prospered. In the 1730s he took his brother Timothy as a partner. Silvanus Bevan had practised medicine at his Plough Court pharmacy and, with the arrival of his brother became less involved in pharmacy and increasingly interested in medicine. In 1725 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Within the family the pharmacy at Plough Court continued to prosper and became the forerunner of the pharmaceutical company Allen and Hanbury. Marriage into other Quaker families linked Silvanus Bevan with the banking firm Barclays.