Alexander Devine
(1865-1930)  

Honours

Commander of the Order of Prince Danilo I (Montenegro)
Order of Civil Merit (France)
Red Cross of Montenegro
Grand Officer of the Order of Prince Danilo I (Montenegro)

Positions Held

Commissioner of the British Relief Mission to Montenegro, 1920
Honorary Plenipotentiary Minister for Montenegro in London (acting)
An Honorary Arbitrators of the Hearts of Oak Benefit Society, 1898
Honorary Missionary to First Offenders (Boys) at the Police Courts, 1887

Biographical

A journalist, educator and reformer, Devine was the son of Henry Devine and Cariclia Couvelas. He founded the Clayesmore School in Winchester and became its headmaster. He was engaged in Social work as the founder of the Lads' Club Movement in 1880, and was the originator of the Universities Camps for Public School Boys. He had been identified with a small group of schoolmasters who for 30 years had been agitating for and demonstrating Public School Reform. In 1906, he was was special correspondent of the Daily Chronicle at the Olympic Games at Athens, and in the Balkan War between 1912-13.

Devine travelled extensively in Europe and North Africa, and was an authority on Old Paris. He was Commissioner to the Continent during the great war on behalf of the
Montenegro Red Cross and Relief Fund of London. He organised relief for the Montenegrin refugees in France, Switzerland, and Italy in 1917, and for interned Montenegrin prisoners in Austria in co-operation with Princesses Xenia and Vera of Montenegro. Devine was to develop a great interest in Montenegro and its affairs.

Devine's publications include: articles on Public School Reform; Plea for a Royal Commission on Public Schools, 1909; L'Enseignement de I'Histoire de France; The Mental
Attitude of Boys towards Religion, 1910; A Crisis in the Education of the Governing Gasses, 1910; A Sympathetic Boyhood, 1913; The Boy's Prayer Book, 1914; Montenegro in
History, Politics, and War, 1918; Off the Map, 1921 ; The Martyred Nation, 1924; Official Book of the Olympic Games, 1908 (editor).

Place of birth: Manchester

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Sources

1. Who's Who 1920, vol. 72. London: A. & C. Black Limited; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920.
2. Who Was Who, Volume III, 1929-1940, 2nd edn. London: A. and C. Black Limited, 1967.
3. H.C. Matthew, B. Harrison et al. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004-2018.