Details of Sculptor

Surname

Devall

Alternative Surname

First Name

John I

Initial of Surname

D

Year of Birth/Baptism

1701

Flourished

Year of Death

1774

Biographical Details

He was the son of a yeoman, ‘George Devall, late of Ensham, Oxon’ and was bound apprentice to Joshua Fletcher II on 2 August 1718 (Masons’ Co, Court Book, 1695-1722 fol 170r, & 1722-51). Deval was admitted to the freedom of the Masons’ Company on 20 February 1727. He worked for Andrews Jelfe, but afterwards set up independently.
Deval was employed as a mason at St Olave’s, Southwark in 1737 and at Kimbolton Castle in 1738. In May 1738 he and Thomas Dunn tendered for the contract to build the Mansion House in London under the architect George Dance the Elder. Another estimate by a group comprising John Townesend of London, Christopher Horsnaile II and Robert Taylor I came in at exactly the same figure, £18,000. In July 1739 the Mansion House committee resolved to give the contract to all five masons at a cost of no more than £17,000. Deval also worked at Guy’s Hospital in 1739 and Cornbury House, London in 1744.
A list of Masons’ Company assistants compiled around 1740 gives Devall’s address as Margaret Street, Oxford Square. In 1742 he became a Director of the Westminster Fire Office. Between 1742 and 1752 he was the mason responsible for building the Foundling Hospital and its chapel. In 1747 he informed the Committee that, on the demolition of Canons, he had purchased for £24 l0s ‘two Venetian windows which would be fit for the chappell of this hospital’ and that he was prepared to part with them at the price he had paid for them. His offer was regretfully refused on the grounds that the windows were too large (Foundling Hospital Archives).
He was employed by the partners of Hoare’s Bank in the 1750s (6) and was also at Woburn, the seat of the 4th Duke of Bedford. At Woburn he worked with Michael Rysbrack and carved a number of ornate marble chimneypieces with caryatid terms and foliage decoration (13). He also worked for the architect Henry Flitcroft, who paid him for work in 1751/2, and the sum of £352 in 1764.
In 1760 he became master of the Masons’ Company. His son, John Deval II, was certainly involved in the business by 1768, for he received a payment for a chimneypiece at Coventry House that year. Another employee was Henry Gill, whose name appears in the Harewood House accounts and who set up Devall’s chimneypieces. Devall was paid £863 for work at the Excise Office in the late 1760s, and Gunnis notes that the father and son were chief masons for the royal palaces, the Tower of London and the royal mews. In 1769 Devall became the chief mason at Newgate prison. The firm seems also to have had a connection with the architect Sir William Chambers, since there is a letter to ‘Mr Devall’ amongst the architect’s letters, dated 26 May 1770 (Chambers’s Letter-Books, Ad MS 41133, fol 15).
Devall’s death is recorded in the Hereford Journal of 17 February 1774. He was buried at Isleworth. He left annuities of £10 and £20 to his servants, Ann Whitwell and John Stalker, and the residue of his personal estate to his son.
MGS
Literary References: Gunnis 1968, 128-9; Colvin V, 1973-76, 349; Jeffery 1993, 49-50, 67, 300; Webb 1999, 3, 14, 18, 20, 22, 31, 37; Harris 2001, 141
Archival References: Masons’ Co, Freemen, fol 13; Assistants, fol 3; Westminster Fire Office, MB, 343/7, 21 Oct 1742; Woburn Building Accts, 1748-62, BLARS R5/1092, 24 Aug 1756 (£192), 1 May 1760 (£36 4s), 26 July 1762 (£19 8s); R5/1105, 24 Dec 1790 (£589 15s); GPC
Will: PROB 11/1002/392