Thomas Davis (priest)

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The Rev. Thomas Davis (15 February 1804 – 11 November 1887) was a Church of England clergyman and hymn writer.

Life

The son of the Rev. Richard Francis Davis DD (ca. 1766–1844), by his marriage to Sarah Stable, Davis was born at Worcester, where his father had been Rector since 1795, and his grandfather was Worcester Mayor Thomas Davis Esq. (d.1820).[1][2] The Rev. Thomas Davis was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1832. He later proceeded to Master of Arts.[3][4][5] In 1833 Davis was ordained a priest and became his father's curate at Worcester, and in 1840 he was appointed Vicar of Roundhay near Leeds in Yorkshire.[4] Davis's father died at the age of seventy-eight on Christmas Day, 1844, of "a violent cold".[6]

On 10 December 1839, at Stratford-upon-Avon, Davis married Christiana Maria Hobbes, a daughter of Robert Hobbes, attorney-at-law,[7] and between 1843 and 1851 they had six children, Christiana F., Arthur Sladen, Henry Champney, Mary Sarah, Harriet Albina, and Emily Judith. Davis died on 11 November 1887 at Heslington, Yorkshire, aged eighty-three, while his widow survived him until 1899.[3][8][9]

Davis's daughter Harriet Albina (1850–1892) married Francis Martineau Lupton of Leeds, and their daughter Olive Christiana Lupton (1881–1936) was the grandmother of Michael Francis Middleton, father of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Pippa Middleton.[5]

Publications

  • Devotional Verse for a Month, &c. (1855)[4]
  • Songs for the Suffering (1859)[4]
  • Endless Sufferings not the Doctrine of Scripture (1866)[4]

Davis's notable hymns include Sing, ye seraphs in the sky and O Paradise eternal![4]

Notes

  1. Death Certificate of Christiana Maria Davis at wargs.com, accessed 29 May 2011
  2. The Gentleman's magazine, vol. 178 (1845), p. 325
  3. 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.[unreliable source?], accessed 23 March 2011
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Josiah Miller, Singers and songs of the church: being biographical sketches of the hymn-writers in all the principal collections (Longmans, Green, 1869), p. 513
  5. 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. Death certificate of Rev. Richard Francis Davis at wargs.com, accessed 29 May 2011
  7. The Gentleman's magazine, vol 13 (1840), p. 201: "MARRIAGES... at Stratford-upon-Avon, the Rev. Thomas Davis, of All Saints, Worcester, to Christiana-Maria, fifth daughter of the late Robert Hobbes, esq."
  8. Death Certificate of Thomas Davis at wargs.com, accessed 29 May 2011
  9. Death Certificate of Christiana Maria Davis at wargs.com, accessed 29 May 2011