Colville Deverell was born on 21 Feb 1907 and educated at Portora Royal School, Enniskillen, Trinity College, Dublin, where he was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Law, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. His first posting, in 1931, was as a District Officer in Kenya, and between 1938 and 1939 he was Clerk to the Executive and Legislative Councils. During the Second World War, he saw service in the Civil Affairs Branch of the East Africa Command, serving in British Somaliland, Italian Somaliland (Somalia), and Ethiopia, where he was a member of Lord de la Warr's Delegation. After secondment to the War Office in connection with the Italian Peace Treaty, he returned to Kenya in 1946 as Secretary of the Development and Reconstruction Authority. In 1949, he acted as Financial Secretary and Chief Native Commissioner and was also appointed Administrative Secretary. From Kenya, he moved to the West Indies as Colonial Secretary of Jamaica from 1952 to 1955. He then became Governor of the Windward Islands between 1955 and 1959 and of Mauritius between 1959 and 1962 when he retired. From that point on, he was much in demand as a constitutional adviser; for Barotseland in 1963, for the Seychelles in 1966, and the British Virgin Islands in 1973. His work for the United Nations in the field of family planning is not represented among these papers. Deverell married Margaret Wynne Willson in 1935 and they had three sons. He was appointed OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1946, CVO (Commander of the Royal Victorian Order) in 1953, CMG (Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George) in 1955, KCMG (Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George) in 1957, and GBE (Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire) in 1963.