William le Deveneys

Sir William le Deveneys (died 1319) was a Crown administrator and judge in late thirteenth and early fourteenth century Ireland, who was very briefly Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.

He was probably a native of Dublin, where he spent his whole career. He is first heard of in 1278, when he was an official of the Exchequer of Ireland. He held several senior positions in the Exchequer, including Chief Remembrancer and Prothonotary (Chief Clerk). He became Keeper of the Royal demesne lands in Ireland in 1281. He was clearly a valued Crown official: he was given twelve oak trees from the royal forest at Glencree, County Wicklow in 1282, and in 1299 he was granted the Royal manor of Thorncastle in south County Dublin, roughly corresponding to modern day Booterstown and Mount Merrion, and the fishery attached to the manor. He also practiced as an attorney in the Royal Courts: no doubt the Crown was his main client, but he also worked for private individuals, including a certain Matilda, with whom he seems to have had a long association.

He was appointed to the Bench as an itinerant justice in 1302. He became a judge of the Court of Common Pleas (Ireland), which was then simply called "the Bench", in 1303. In 1308 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas but resigned from that office shortly afterwards: he was reappointed to the Common Pleas in 1312. He was Bailiff of Dublin in 1308, and was knighted in 1312. He died in 1319.