He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1905. He interested himself in the work of the Society of Comparative Legislation; and wrote on legal reforms of the past thirty years in the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' (10th edit. 1902).
Davey married on 5 Aug. 1862 Louisa Hawes, daughter of John Donkin, civil engineer, who survived him. Of his family of two sons and four daughters, the two youngest daughters, Beatrix Wickens and Margaret Bowen (twins), married respectively Major-General Sir William Gatacre [q. v. Suppl. II] and F. W. Pember, son of Edward Henry Pember, K.C. [q. v. Suppl. II].
An oil painting of Davey by G. F. Watts, R.A., is in the possession of his widow. Another portrait, by Mr. S. J. Solomon, R.A., is at University College, Oxford; a replica of the latter by the artist belongs to the benchers of Lincoln's Inn.
[The Times, 22 Feb. 1907; Journal Soc. of Comparative Legislation, n.s. viii. 10 (Lord Macnaghten); Proc. Brit. Acad. 1907-8, pp. 371 seq. (by Sir Courtenay Ilbert); Oxford Historical Reg.; the Law Reports; private information; personal knowledge.]
DAVIDSON, ANDREW BRUCE (1831–1902), Hebraist and theologian, born in 1831 at Ellon, North Aberdeenshire, was son of Andrew Davidson, a sturdy farmer who was keenly interested in the pending controversy respecting church government; his mother, Helen Bruce, was strongly attracted by the evangelical revival of the day. At his mother's wish he was sent in 1845 to the grammar school of Aberdeen, where James Melvin [q. v.] was headmaster; and in 1846 he gained a small bursary in what was then the Marischal University, Aberdeen. There in 1849 he graduated M.A. From 1849 to 1852 he was teacher at the Free church school in Ellon, and during those three years mastered not only Hebrew but various modern languages. In 1852 he entered the Divinity Hall of the Free church in Edinburgh, called the New College; and at the end of the four years' course was licensed in 1856 to become a preacher, but did little preaching or other parochial work. In 1858 he was appointed assistant to John Duncan (1796–1870) [q. v.], professor of Hebrew at the New College, who exerted upon him a stimulating influence. In 1863 he became Duncan's successor in the chair of Hebrew and Oriental languages, and held the post until Ms death, exerting from the first, partly by Ms writings, but chiefly by his personality, a commanding influence. Of a small and spare figure, quiet and unpretending in speech and manner, retiring in disposition, he riveted in the lecture-room the admiration and affection of his pupils. 'Easy mastery of Ms subject, lucid and attractive discourse, the faculty of training men in scientific method, the power of making them think out things for themselves, were united in him with the capacity of holding their minds, quickening their ideas, and commanding their imaginations.' He had a keen sense of humour, and a power of quiet but effective sarcasm.
He preached rarely, but Mhis sermons show freshness, independence, religious sympathy, and penetration. He was an influential member of the Old Testament revision company (1870–1884), and was made hon. LL.D. of Aberdeen (1868), hon. D.D. of Edinburgh (1868) and Glasgow, and hon. Litt.D. of Cambridge (1900). He died unmarried at Edinburgh on 20 Jan. 1902. Davidson devoted Ms life to the study of the Old Testament, its language, its exegesis, its theology. Whatever aspect of it he touched, his treatment was always masterly, sympathetic, and judicial. In his exegetical works one feels that, whatever opinion he puts forth upon a difficult subject, it is the result of long and mature study and represents the best conclusion which the circumstances of the case permit, and he excelled in the analysis of moral feeling and in the delineation of character.
At the time when he began to lecture, the Old Testament was mostly studied uncritically and superficially, and solely with a view to the dogmatic statements to be found in it. Davidson taught his pupils to realise its historical significance, to understand what its different writings meant to those who first heard them uttered, or road them, to trace the historical progress of religious ideas, to cultivate, in a word historical exegesis. Some of his pupils have left on record, what a revelation it was to them to find that the prophets, for instance, were men of flesh and blood like themselves, interested in the political and social movements of their times, eager to influence for good their own contemporaries. Davidson initiated in this country that historical view of the Old Testament which was afterwards more fully developed by his pupil William Robertson Smith [q. v.], and is now generally accepted among scholars. Davidson also gave valuable help in other directions. He was the power which lay behind W. R. Smith; and though he took hardly any personal part in the struggle of
