Reverend William Davy, who died in 1826 at the age of 83, was one of the most distinctive clerics ever associated with Lustleigh. Before becoming Rector and Vicar of Winkleigh All Saints, he served as curate of Lustleigh, where his mechanical skill, eccentricity and relentless industry became well known. His connection to the parish was not merely clerical: he left Lustleigh with a practical legacy that outlasted all his theological writings.
One of his major contributions to Lustleigh was the construction of the parish school in 1825. A plaque on the building recorded: “Built by subscription and endowed with Lowton Meadow in Moreton for supporting a school for ever by the Rev. William Davy curate of this parish.” Davy organised the fundraising, provided the endowment, and ensured that the school was placed on a permanent financial footing. His endowment of Lowton Meadow was accompanied by a printed leaflet he wrote and published himself, titled “Apology for giving Lowton Meadow to the Parish of Lustleigh.” It demonstrated both his fondness for long titles and his expansive vocabulary.
In that leaflet he explained his reasoning in characteristically elaborate terms: “Whereas from my long service in that church I have a strong regard and hearty desire for its present and future welfare, and being from repeated proofs too unhappily convinced of the uneconomical and profligate disposition of my immediate successors, and being willing in my lifetime to do the greatest and most lasting good with the little property I have in fee, I do hereby with the consent of my son (who by good conduct and kind providence is sufficiently provided for) offer to give to the officiating minister and churchwardens of the parish of Lustleigh all that one close or meadow called Mortice or Lowton Meadow in Moreton Hampsted… in trust for ever for the support and maintenance of a school for poor children in the parish town for that purpose.”
This endowment, combined with local subscription, enabled the school to be built. It became one of the most durable legacies of his time in Lustleigh and remains central to his reputation in the parish.
Davy’s other great labour was his “System of Divinity”, a massive theological work intended to run to twenty‑six volumes. Its full title, typical of the period, was “Divinity or Discourses on the Being of God, the Divinity of Christ, the Personality and the Divinity of the Holy Ghost and on the Sacred Trinity.” Each volume contained around five hundred pages. Contemporary commentators described the text as “almost intolerably unreadable”, whether due to its style or its length. No publisher was willing to undertake such a project.
Davy therefore built his own timber printing press, purchased old type from a local newspaper owner, and set about printing the entire work himself. Assisted only by his housekeeper, Mary Hole, he printed, bound and produced fourteen complete sets. The labour took twelve years, ending in 1807. It is estimated that he operated the press more than 13,000 times to complete the task. Even his own bishops declined to support publication. Davy distributed copies to literary figures, libraries and universities “for posterity”, having abandoned hope of financial return or recognition.
His mechanical interests extended beyond printing. In 1782, when HMS Royal George capsized at Spithead with the loss of nearly nine hundred lives, the Admiralty issued a national call for assistance in salvaging the ship and recovering the remains. Davy devised an innovative diving bell and travelled to Portsmouth to present it. Initially dismissed, the design was later adopted and built with some success, though others claimed credit for the idea. Davy received no payment for his invention.
He continued to design further presses and published additional volumes of sermons, losing money on each venture. His mechanical ingenuity, persistence and willingness to undertake immense labour were characteristic. In Lustleigh he applied the same determination to raising funds for the construction of the parish school in 1825, ensuring that the village had a permanent educational building at a time when rural schooling was often improvised or non‑existent.
Reverend William Davy died in 1826. His twenty‑six‑volume theological project, his diving bell, his printing press and his work for the Lustleigh school form a legacy of unusual breadth for a rural clergyman. In Lustleigh his name is remembered not for the vast manuscript that consumed twelve years of his life, but for the practical achievement of securing a school for the parish.
