[1] The hotel was erected and owned for 50 years by local entrepreneur Francis Clark.

[2] Clark had arrived in Melbourne in 1840, and became manager of James Palmer's lemonade and soda factory.

He bought speculative property around Fitzroy and Alphington, and lived a prosperous life.

Although he hailed from Essex, the hotel was given the name Devonshire Arms, owing to the pre-goldrush population of the area being principally from the south-west of England.

It was one of 27 Melbourne hotels forced to close by a July 1920 meeting of the Licensing Reduction Board, formally being delicensed in December that year.