Thomas Davis (15 February 1804 – 11 November 1887) was a Church of England clergyman and hymn writer.
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,[1] and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1832. He later proceeded Master of Arts.[2][3] 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.[3] Davis's father died at the age of seventy-eight on Christmas Day, 1844, of "a violent cold".[4]
On 10 December 1839, at Stratford-upon-Avon, Davis married Christiana Maria Hobbes, a daughter of Robert Hobbes, attorney-at-law,[5] 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.[2][6][7]
Davis's daughter Harriet Albina (1850–1892) married Francis Martineau Lupton of Leeds, whose daughter Olive Christiana Lupton (1881–1936) was the grandmother of Michael Francis Middleton, father of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Pippa Middleton.[8]
Davis's notable hymns include Sing, ye seraphs in the sky and O Paradise eternal![3]