Devis, Anthony, Lancs., joiner and cm (b. c. 1692–1742). Recorded in Cockerham, date unrecorded; and Church St, Preston, 1712. App. to a cm, possibly James Verscragen, in Preston, c. 1701. Named in the Preston Court Leet records as a juror, and as having completed his apprenticeship in 1708. In 1714 he was elected burgess, and in 1729 and 1742, a town councillor. Son, Arthur Devis, the portrait painter, b. 1712, when the family lived in Church St. His five other sons included Bartholomew and William, watchmakers of London. Recorded as ‘joyner’ in 1722, but made furniture for Hoghton Tower, near Preston. [Preston Guild record of burgesses; Preston RO, Hoghton Tower accounts; Polite Society, by Arthur Devis, Preston Exhib. cat., 1983, pp. 19 and 49]