James De Ville

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James S. De Ville (often also Deville ) (born March 12, 1777 in Hammersmith , † May 6, 1846 in London ) was an English phrenologist .

Life

James De Ville's family had Swiss roots; his grandfather had immigrated from Bern and married in England. From the age of eight, James De Ville was raised by a maternal uncle due to economic difficulties and no longer attended school. Around the age of 13, he worked at the Edinburgh Castle Tavern on The Strand, London . Soon after, he was commissioned by a neighboring sculptor, Mr. Harris. Harris died in 1796. The following year De Ville married Jane Smith, who ran a small shop. He himself continued to make plaster casts, etc., as he had learned from Harris. The marriage to Jane Smith had five children.

In 1803, De Ville went into business for himself in Soho . He was soon able to move to Leicester Square and gradually employ eight people. From the plaster foundry he switched to metal casting and now mainly made lanterns. In 1814 he moved back to The Strand. From 1816 he produced lamps for lighthouses. Eventually De Ville became a member of the Institute of Civil Engineers as well as the Society of Arts. He came into contact with phrenology through Bryan Donkin, who also belonged to the Institute of Civil Engineers. Donkin had heard lectures from Franz Joseph Gall in Vienna and was one of Johann Gaspar Spurzheim's students . He commissioned De Ville from 1817 with plaster casts in the service of science. De Ville soon took an interest in phrenology that went beyond the craft and began to collect phrenological specimens.

From 1821 De Ville also made casts of living test persons. He received guidance from CA Tulk. In 1824 he brought out a standardized plaster bust with an accompanying book on the phrenological regions. As early as 1823 he had founded the London Phrenological Society together with John Elliotson (1791–1868) and Donkin and visited Spurzheim in Paris and invited them to lectures in London. These lectures took place in 1825 and then De Ville began teaching himself, which, however, often earned him ridicule due to his lack of school education.

In 1826 he examined the heads of prisoners who were about to be shipped to New South Wales and correctly predicted the dangers of the crossing: a riot broke out on the ship. That same year he examined the elephant Chunee , who had been shot in its cage, and made a huge plaster cast. His offer to examine the other animals in the menagerie at Exeter Change in order to be able to predict possible further dangers - Chunee could no longer let himself be controlled - was rejected by the owner.

Among the people De Ville examined were John Elliotson, Hermann von Pückler-Muskau , Harriet Martineau , Charles Bray , George Eliot , William Blake , Richard Dale Owen , Richard Carlile , Marian Evans , Jules Sébastien-César Dumont d'Urville , the Duke of Wellington and Prince Albert .

In the 1820s to 1840s he was considered the most famous phrenologist and maker of plaster casts in London. Spurzheim and Gall equally admired his collection, which at his death comprised about 5,450 pieces, and De Ville sold his plaster models worldwide. Many specimens have been preserved in the Edinburgh School of Anatomy.

In 1840 he became a member of the Phrenological Association; In 1842 he withdrew under the impression of the split in phrenologists in England after the speech of William Collins Engledue (1814-1859), in which phrenology was equated with materialism.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.npg.org.uk/assets/migrated_assets/docs/beyond/partners/beningbrough-hall/ben_handsonheads.pdf indicates the year of death as 1847, http://www.npg.org.uk/collections /search/person.php?LinkID=mp06884&role=art but with 1846. David de Giustino even mentions the year of death 1853 in Conquest of Mind , p. 94.
  2. ↑ http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/broughttolife/objects/display.aspx?id=6759 shows a picture of a bust made in 1821.
  3. ↑ http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iss/spec/bookmonth/
  4. ↑ http://www.hht.net.au/whats_on/past_exhibitions/mos/lure_of_the_southern_seas_the_voyages_of_dumont_durville_1826-1840
personal data
SURNAME De Ville, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Deville, James; DeVille, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English phrenologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1777
PLACE OF BIRTH Hammersmith
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1846
Place of death London