English: Daniel Edward Evans and J. Deakin at an EDCO (Evans Deakin and Company) picnic at Lone Pine, 1930

EDCO picnic in November 1930. Founders D.E. Evans and J. Deakin. (Description supplied with photograph). In 1910 Daniel Edward Evans, aged 25 and Arthur Deakin, aged 23, opened a small business in Edward Street as suppliers of engineering equipment. They acquired their first workshop in 1913. In July 1915 Evans joined the Australian Imperial Force as a lieutenant in the 2nd Divisional Engineers and served in Egypt and France. By the time his active service was terminated by wounds in February 1918 he was a major. In 1924 Evans became lieutenant-colonel commanding the 5th Division, Australian Engineers, and in 1930 colonel commanding the 11th Infantry Brigade. The engineering business, carried on during the war by Deakin, had prospered. Evans started a new workshop making small pieces of equipment in an outbuilding of his Coorparoo home in 1919. A larger establishment was bought in 1922. A new large workshop built at Rocklea for structural steel and railway-engine repairs in 1926 was ready to manufacture the steel work for the Story Bridge in 1933.

Evans was in uniform again at the outbreak of World War II as chief engineer, Northern Command. In addition he established the Evans Deakin shipyard at Kangaroo Point.