Humphrey Jervis

Humphrey Jervis (1630 -1707) KBE was the first private improver in the history of Dublin. He was Lord Mayor of Dublin during the reign of Charles II of England.

Jervis was born in 1630 in Ollerton, Shropshire. He was one of the younger sons of John Jervys of Chatkyll in Staffordshire and Elizabeth Jervys. He was baptized at the Church of All Saints in Standon, Staffordshire on the 11 July 1630.

Humphrey Jervis was a ship-owner and merchant as well as an architect and a freeman of the city of Dublin. Later on he became Lord Mayor of the city between 1681 and 1682. He was knighted for his services in 1681. He died in 1707 in Dublin and is buried in St. Mary's, Dublin.

The family name Jervis originates from the Norman name Gervase. The family can trace their origins back to Brian de Standon (b. 1046) who came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror. His son Radulpho de Standon is mentioned in the Domesday Book in 1030 as 'Tenant in Chief'.

Humphrey Jervis is notable for having developed the area of Dublin to the north of the River Liffey. It was the first large-scale residential scheme of its kind, born out of his own initiative and funded privately by him, after he and number of associates bought 20 acres of the lands of St. Mary’s Abbey in 1674 from Richard Power, 1st Earl of Tyrone, for the sum about £3,000. The main part of Jervis’s development comprised a rectangular grid that ran off Capel Street and that included; Jervis Street, Mary Street, Great Britain Street and Great Strand Street, at the centre of which was St. Mary's Church and graveyard.

The Abbey of St. Mary’s had been founded in 1154 for the Savignac Order and was passed on in the 1170s to the Cistercians. At the time it was considered to be the richest Cistercian monastery in Ireland, but it became a casualty of Henry VIII policy on the Dissolution of the Monasteries in about 1539. In 1676 Sir Humphrey approached the Viceroy, who was then Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex, with a view to developing the land and building a bridge across the River Liffey to connect the new development with the old city, which he intended to name in honour of the Viceroy. He was therefore granted permission and the bridge duly became called Essex Bridge after completion. Jervis's new bridge had a drawbridge, or lifting section at one end to allow large boats and ships with masts to sail upstream. It connected with the main thoroughfare of Jervis’s development being named Capel Street after the Viceroy’s family name that subsequently became one of the most fashionable addresses in Dublin. Essex Bridge was built using the stone from the old abbey, and it became the focal point of Dublin remaining so for more than one hundred years, but after having fallen into disrepair in 1872, it was rebuilt and refashioned, following that it was renamed as Grattan Bridge.

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