James De Ville

He acquired moulds and busts for business purposes, manufacturing reproductions, and also built up a renowned phrenological collection.

From a Swiss Protestant background on his father's side, he was born in Hammersmith, the son of James Louis De Ville and his wife Mary Bryant.

[1][2] His family fell on hard times, and as a boy De Ville was fostered by an uncle who had a brickmaking business there.

[3][4] De Ville set up a plaster works in Soho in 1803, moving on after two years to Great Newport Street in the Covent Garden–Leicester Square area.

[2][7] In other lines of business, De Ville dealt in architectural metal wares, and supplied lights for the Menai Bridge.

[17] In a room adjacent to his shop, De Ville gave public shows of part of his collection of casts and skulls.

[22] As a phrenological practitioner, he examined a large number of heads including those of John Elliotson, Hermann Prince of Pückler-Muskau, Charles Bray, George Eliot, William Blake, Richard Dale Owen, Richard Carlile, the Duke of Wellington and Prince Albert.

[1] Harriet Martineau, a believer in phrenology but mocker of incompetent phrenologists, found it amusing that De Ville's examination of her head led to the conclusion that she lived "a life of constant failure through timidity.