John Curzon Moore-Stevens (1818–1903), JP, DL, MP for North Devon, High Sheriff of Devon in 1870.Fox-Davies, A.C., A Directory of Gentlemen of coat-armour, Volume 2, page 87
Moore-Stevens was the son and heir of Thomas Moore-Stevens (1782–1832). He had been brought up in the expectation of becoming the heir of John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle (1750–1842), of Stevenstone,Harrison, E.M., History of the Church at Otterton (church leaflet), 1982, p.29 who died childless and was his great-grandmother's nephew. However, Lord Rolle instead left his fortune to Hon. Mark Trefusis, who changed his name to Mark Rolle (d. 1907), the nephew of his second wife Louisa Trefusis, a daughter of Baron Clinton. He married in 1850 Elizabeth Anne Johnson, daughter of Rev. Peter Johnson.Fox-Davies
Moore-Stevens rebuilt Winscott in 1865, immediately following his inheritance. He served as a JP on the Quarter Sessions Court of Devon, and Winscott House was built with its own "Magistrate's Room" with a separate entrance. He was especially reactionary and old-fashioned and at the Mid-Summer sessions of 1882 had declared his object was "to get rid of traction-engines altogether".Hoskins, W.G., A New Survey of England: Devon, London, 1959, p.194 On the abolition of the Quarter-Sessions in 1889 he was the only former JP to have been defeated by a non-magistrate in the elections for councillors to the new replacement governing body of the Devon County Council.Hoskins, p.194
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