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DEVILLE, James (1777-1846)

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Metadata

Born: 1777

Died: 1846

Editorial Description

leading phrenological manipulator and cast maker in London in the 1820s and 1830s, among whose customers were H. MARTINEAU, C. BRAY, George Eliot, R. D. OWEN, R. CARLILE, the Duke of Wellington, and Prince Albert; from humble origins, he became in the 1810s a lampmaker with a profitable business in lighthouse fittings and plaster castings; Fell Zoolog Soc; member (subsequently chairman) of the Roy Soc Arts, and MICE; fellow engineer Bryan DONKIN encouraged him in the early 1820s to branch into phrenological casting, whence arose his interest in phrenology; organized SPURZHEIM'S lectures at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, 1825; regarded as "an illiterate" by some phrenologists; co-founded with ELLIOTSON and DONKIN the LONDON PHREN SOC, of which he was sometimes treasurer; M PHREN ASSN, 1840, resigned 1842; lectured at mechanics' insts and Lit insts throughout Britain in the 1830s and gave private lectures in his museum-shop in the Strand; left a collection of over 5,000 skulls and casts. (Memoir by J. P. BROWNE, 1846.)

Works as Listed by Roger Cooter (1989)

299.1 — 299.1 Outlines of Phrenology, as an Accompaniment to the Phrenological Bust. London: J. de Ville, 1824. Pp. 123. (Reviewed PHREN J, 1 [1823/4]: 625-9, where Deville is praised, but not the Outlines.)
299.2 — 299.2 *Manual of Phrenology as an accompaniment to the Phrenological Bust. London: J. de Ville, 1826. Pp. 140. Subsequent edns, 1828, 1831, 1841.
299.3 — 299.3 "An Account of [Deville's] Phrenological Collection--at Phrenological Association," PHREN J, 14 (1841): 19-23. (2,400 casts to be preserved after death; J. P. BROWNE--"the zealous phrenologist"--noted as helping to prepare a catalogue.)
299.4 — 299.4 "Account of a number of cases in which a change had been produced on the form of the head by education and moral training--Phrenological Association, Glasgow," PHREN J, 14 (1841): 32-8.
299.5 — 299.5 "Phrenological Sketch of Frederic Towgood, Esq. [May 1842]," J HEALTH & PHREN MAG, 6 [1856]: 73.

Editorial Information

Identifier	299.
Type	Person
Source	Roger Cooter, Phrenology in the British Isles (1989)
PDF page	102
Printed page	97
Database ID	956

Original Transcription

299. DEVILLE, James (1777-1846), leading phrenological manipulator
and cast maker in London in the 1820s and 1830s, among whose customers were H. MARTINEAU, C. BRAY, George Eliot, R. D. OWEN,


R. CARLILE, the Duke of Wellington, and Prince Albert; from humble
origins, he became in the 1810s a lampmaker with a profitable business in lighthouse fittings and plaster castings; Fell Zoolog Soc;
member (subsequently chairman) of the Roy Soc Arts, and MICE;
fellow engineer Bryan DONKIN encouraged him in the early 1820s
to branch into phrenological casting, whence arose his interest in
phrenology; organized SPURZHEIM'S lectures at the Crown and Anchor Tavern, 1825; regarded as "an illiterate" by some phrenologists;
co-founded with ELLIOTSON and DONKIN the LONDON PHREN SOC,
of which he was sometimes treasurer; M PHREN ASSN, 1840, resigned
1842; lectured at mechanics' insts and Lit insts throughout Britain
in the 1830s and gave private lectures in his museum-shop in the
Strand; left a collection of over 5,000 skulls and casts. (Memoir
by J. P. BROWNE, 1846.)