Horace Davey, Baron Davey QC (30 August 1833 – 20 February 1907) was an English judge and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons in two periods between 1880 and 1892.
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Davey was the son of Peter Davey, of Horton, Buckinghamshire. He was educated at Rugby and University College, Oxford.[1] He took a double first-class in classics and mathematics, was senior mathematical scholar and Eldon law scholar, and was elected a fellow of his college. In 1861, he was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn, and read in the chambers of Mr. (afterwards Vice-Chancellor) Wickens.
Devoting himself to the Chancery side, Davey soon acquired a large practice, and in 1875 became a Queen's Counsel In 1880, he was returned to Parliament as a Liberal for Christchurch, but lost his seat in 1885.[2] On Gladstone's return to power in 1886, he was appointed Solicitor-General and was knighted, but had no seat in the House of Commons, being defeated at both Ipswich and Stockport in 1886; in 1888 he found a seat at Stockton-on-Tees, but was rejected by that constituency in 1892.[3]
Davey was standing counsel to the University of Oxford, and senior counsel to the Charity Commissioners, and was engaged in all the important Chancery suits of his time. Among the chief leading cases in which he took a prominent part were those of The Mogul Steamship Company v. M'Gregor, Gow & Co., 1892, Boswell v. Coaks, 1884, Erlanger v. New Sombrero Company, 1878, and the Ooregum Gold Mines Company v. Roper, 1892; he was counsel for the promoters in the trial of Edward King, bishop of Lincoln, and leading counsel in the Berkeley peerage case. In 1893, he was raised to the bench as a Lord Justice of Appeal, and in the next year was made a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and a life peer as Baron Davey, of Fernhurst in the County of Sussex. Lord Davey's great legal knowledge was displayed in his judgments no less than at the bar. In legislation, he was a keen promoter of the act passed in 1906 for the checking of gambling.
Lord Davey married Louisa Donkin in 1862. He died in London in February 1907, aged 74. He was survived by his wife and two sons and four daughters.[1]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Henry Drummond Wolff |
Member of Parliament for Christchurch 1880 – 1885 |
Succeeded by Charles Edward Baring Young |
| Preceded by Joseph Dodds |
Member of Parliament for Stockton-on-Tees 1888 – 1892 |
Succeeded by Thomas Wrightson |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Sir John Eldon Gorst |
Solicitor General for England and Wales 1886 |
Succeeded by Sir Edward George Clarke |