Everard Devenish was born on 26 May 1909 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, the son of Louis Devenish, a cocoa planter, and his wife Wilhelmina, née Urich. He received his schooling at St Mary's College in Trinidad and was a Colonial Science Scholar there before his medical training at University College Hospital in London. He was a scholar and prize winner and received the Goldsmith Exhibition as well as the Roberts Medal in gynaecology. He was appointed house officer to the surgical unit where he worked with Wilfred Trotter and Gwynne Williams. Finally he became a consultant in orthopaedic surgery at the West Middlesex Hospital. He served in the RAMC, 1946-1947, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1937 he married a Miss Scott and they had two sons and a daughter, none of whom took up medicine. His hobbies were reading and gardening. He died on 6 February 1983.