Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/173

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Darwin
D.N.B. 1912–1921
Davies, J.

most of the leading scientific societies of the world.

Darwin married in 1884 Maud, daughter of Charles du Puy, of Philadelphia, U.S.A., by whom he had two sons and two daughters. The eldest son, Charles Galton Darwin, has followed with distinction his father’s career of applied mathematics.

There is a portrait of Darwin by Mark Gertler in the National Portrait Gallery, which was painted in 1912 and presented by Lady Darwin in 1923.

[Sir Francis Darwin, Memoir of Sir G. Darwin in vol. v of Scientific Papers by Sir George Howard Darwin, 1916; obituary notices in Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. lxxxix, A, 1913-1914, and in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 73; Francis Galton and Edgar Schuster, Noteworthy Families, 1906; Emma Darwin: A Century of Family Letters (1792-1896), edited by Henrietta Litchfield; Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, edited by Francis Darwin, 8 vols., 1887; personal knowledge.]

J. H. J.


DAVIDSON, JAMES LEIGH STRACHAN- (1843-1916), classical scholar. [See Strachan-Davidson.]

DAVIES, JOHN LLEWELYN (1826-1916), theologian, was born at Chichester 26 February 1826, the eldest son of the Rev. John Davies, D.D., an evangelical divine, rector of Gateshead from 1840 to 1861, by his wife, Mary Hopkinson. He was educated at Repton School and at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1848 he was bracketed fifth in the classical tripos with his friend, David James Vaughan [q.v.], also of Trinity, with whom he had been elected to a Bell university scholarship in 1845; in 1850 the friends were elected fellows of their college together, and they subsequently (1852) collaborated in translating Plato’s Republic. Davies as an undergraduate was already interested in political and social questions, and he became president of the Union Society. After taking his degree he for a time taught private pupils, among whom was (Sir) Leslie Stephen. About this time he came under the influence of Frederick Denison Maurice [q.v.], whose teaching his clear mind was to make acceptable to many who found Maurice himself elusive. Taking orders in 1851 Davies first held a curacy, unpaid, at St. Anne’s, Limehouse, and was then for four years (1852-1856) incumbent of St. Mark’s, Whitechapel. He now became closely associated with Maurice’s circle, especially Thomas Hughes, Charles Kingsley, and John Malcolm Forbes Ludlow, in the work of the co-operative movement and in the establishment of the Working Men’s College in Great Ormond Street in 1854. In 1856 he was appointed to the crown living of Christ Church, Marylebone, which he held for thirty-three years. It was mainly a poor parish, but the rector’s preaching drew hearers from other parts of London.

With his clerical work Davies combined other public activities and interests. He was a warm friend of the movement for the higher education of women, in which his sister, Sarah Emily Davies [q.v.], played a prominent part. From 1873 to 1874 and again from 1878 to 1886 he was principal of Queen’s College, Harley Street, which had been founded by Maurice in 1848 for the advancement of women’s education. He supported the extension to women of university degrees and of the parliamentary franchise. He was a member of the first London School Board; he favoured unsectarian religious teaching in elementary schools, and he suggested the formula known as the ‘Cowper-Temple clause’, which was embodied in the Education Act of 1870. In politics Davies was a strong but independent liberal: he was opposed to Gladstone’s Home Rule measures, but rejoined the liberal party when free trade was threatened. He was strongly in sympathy with trade unionism, and raised his voice to vindicate the movement at a time when it was far from popular. Thus in 1872 he addressed a great meeting at Exeter Hall in support of combinations amongst agricultural labourers, and the next year at the Church Congress he vigorously combated clerical prejudice against trade unions.

It is chiefly, however, as a broad churchman that Davies will be remembered. He joined in establishing the National Church Reform Union (1870), which aimed at making the Church of England more truly national and comprehensive. His views on the relation between church and state probably stood in the way of ecclesiastical preferment, for which he seemed marked out by his practical ability, his earnestness, moderation, and fairness of mind, as well as by the position which he held in the religious and social life of London. There he was esteemed by many who held widely different opinions. His marriage brought him into close relation with the English advocates of positivism, two of whom, Henry Crompton and Edward Spencer Beesly, were his wife’s brother and brother-in-law respectively.

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