Cyril Furmstone Evans (1892 – 1959) was a British wireless telegraphist who was sole operator aboard SS Californian the night the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the early hours of 15 April 1912. During the sinking, he was off duty and was never awoken by the crew, resulting in the Californian missing Titanic's distress signals. Evans was subsquently called to testify at both the American and British inquiries into the disaster.

Not much is known about Evans' early life. He was born in 1892 in Croydon, Surrey, and joined the Marconi Company in 1911 after going to the British School of Telegraphy, along with Harold Bride. His first assignment was aboard the RMS Cedric where made one voyage, before he was transferred to SS Californian.^[1]

In April 1912, when Titanic embarked on her maiden voyage, Evans was making his third voyage on the Californian, under Captain Stanley Lord, westbound for Boston. He was the sole wireless operator on board.^[1]

On the night of 14 April 1912, Evans was on duty aboard the Californian when Captain Stanley Lord entered the wireless operator's cabin and informed him that they had stopped because of ice in the vicinity and ordered him to warn all other ships in the area, which he did.^[2][3]

Meanwhile, in the wireless room of Titanic, senior operator Jack Philips and junior operator Harold Bride were tirelessly working to clear a backlog of passengers' private messages that were to be relayed to the Cape Race wireless station.

When Philips received Evans's ice warning, he was almost deafened by the sudden interference in his headset and sent an angry response: "Keep out; shut up! I am busy; I'm working: Cape Race." Philips never passed this message to the bridge, but in his defence, Evans had not prefixed the message with the letters, "MSG," which stood for Master Service Gram, as was customary for all messages intended for the bridge. Evans, feeling that he had done what was asked of him despite Philips's rude apparent rejection of the message, then switched off his wireless equipment and went to bed.

In the early morning hours of 15 April 1912, Philips communicated with the nearest ship responding to the SOS call that he sent out on the orders of Titanic Captain Edward Smith. The ship was RMS Carpathia, which steamed to the rescue of the stricken liner but was 4 hours away, while the Californian was much closer to Titanic. Although Lord's officers informed him of the large ship, which had stopped and was visible to them, firing rockets, Lord never thought to wake Evans, but he tried to communicate with Titanic by Morse lamp. Evans was woken when it was too late and learned by his headset what had happened to Titanic. The Californian, after looking for any survivors that had been missed by Carpathia, found none and continued on its route to America.

Upon arrival, several key crew members, including Lord and Evans, were summoned to give evidence at the American inquiry. Evans also gave evidence at the British inquiry into the tragedy.

Evans continued his service with the Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company and its successor companies (Eastern Telegraph Company and Cable & Wireless: the later part of his career was spent as manager for Cable and Wireless on the West Indian island of St Lucia) for the rest of his life. He also served at sea in World War I and World War II, running mobile telecommunications for the British Army in North Africa and then Italy.

He married and raised a family. He died of a heart attack in 1959.

In the film A Night to Remember, Evans was portrayed by Geoffrey Bayldon.

• Hughes, Michael and Bosworth, Katherine, Titanic Calling : Wireless Communications During the Great Disaster, Oxford, WorldCat.org, 2012, ISBN 978-1-85124-377-8.