Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/489

 DAVEY, HORACE, (1833–1907), judge, born at Horton, Buckinghamshire, on 29 August 1833, was second son of Peter Davey (1792–1879) of that place by his wife Caroline Emma, daughter of William Pace, rector of Rampisham-cum-Wraxall, Dorset. He was educated at Rugby and at University College, Oxford, where he won an open scholarship in 1852, matriculating on 20 March of that year. He gained a double first class in classics and mathematics, both in moderations in 1854 and in the final schools in 1856. He was chosen a fellow of his college in 1854. In 1857 he was elected Johnson's (now the junior) mathematical scholar of the university, and senior mathematical scholar in the following year ; in 1859 he obtained the Eldon law scholarship. He graduated B.A. in 1856 and proceeded M.A. in 1859.

Davey was admitted a student of Lincoln's Inn on 19 Jan. 1857, and was called to the bar on 26 Jan. 1861, having read in the chambers of John Wickens [q. v.], then regarded as the most distinguished school of equity pleading. Lord Macnaghten, afterwards Davey's rival at the bar, but slightly his senior in standing, relates how Wickens announced to him one morning that in the person of Davey he had at last found a pupil of whose success he felt assured. From the first Davey acquired an extensive junior practice in the chancery courts, running neck and neck with Montagu Cookson, now Montagu Crackanthorpe, K.C., who had come down from Oxford with identical distinctions in the class lists. In 1865 Davey collaborated with (Sir) George Osborne Morgan [q. v. Suppl. I] in a standard work upon costs in Chancery (1865) and helped Morgan in 'The New Reports' (1863-5). On the appointment of Wickens as vice-chancellor in 1871 Davey became lu's secretary, and filled the same office under Vice-chancellor Hall, who succeeded Wickens in 1873. He took silk on 23 June 1875 'with strange misgivings,' says Lord Macnaghten, 'and much hesitation.' As a leader his success was instantaneous. He practised in the court of the master of the rolls, Sir George Jessel [q. v.], and soon divided the business there with J. W. Chitty [q. v. Suppl. I], afterwards lord justice. Davey's legal judgment was intuitive and almost infallible, and his wide acquaintance with foreign law systems gave him a marked advantage over his competitors, leading to constant employment in the privy council and in Scottish cases in the House of Lords. Before long he succeeded to the solid reputation which Wickens had held as an unrivalled 'case lawyer,' so that at last his 'opinions' came to be regarded as equivalent to judgments and from time to time were accepted as decisions by mutual consent of the parties. His argument delivered in the court of appeal in 1876 on behalf of one of the interveners in the St. Leonards will case, shortly after he had become a Q.C., created a deep impression on the court and the bar. On the elevation of Sir Edward Fry to the bench in 1877 Davey became a 'special,' and was henceforward retained largely in the superior tribunals, his chief rivals being (Sir) John Rigby [q. v. Suppl. II], Montagu Cookson, and Edward | (now Lord) Macnaghten. 'He was never dull or tedious,' writes the latter ; 'he always knew his case thoroughly, nothing I came amiss to him, nothing was too small for his attention, nothing was too great for his powers.' From his boyhood he had been remarkable for his clear-cut phrases and admirably constructed sentences. When his argument at Lambeth in the proceedings instituted against Bishop King of Lincoln in 1890 was praised for its style to Archbishop Benson, the archbishop remarked 'It was exactly in the same way that he used to construe Thucydides to me when I was school-house tutor at Rugby.'

In politics Davey was an advanced liberal, and he was returned to parliament in that interest for Christchurch in April 1880, but he lost his seat at the general election of November 1885. Following Gladstone in his home rule policy, he received the post of solicitor-general on 16 Feb. 1886, and was knighted on 8 March. His efforts to recover his place in the House of Commons involved him in a long series of electoral misfortunes. He was beaten in a bye-election at Ipswich in April, and at Stockport in the general election of July 1886, going out of office with his party a week or two later. At a bye-election in Dec. 1888 he was successful at Stockton-on-Tees, only to be defeated at the general election of July 1892. None the less Gladstone made him solicitor-general for the second time in August 1892, but Davey failed to find a seat in the House of Commons. He could not adopt an ingratiating manner or suit his oratory to the requirements of an uncultivated audience. On the platform he provoked irritation owing to his intensely judicial habit of mind forcing him to qualify and guard every statement. Nor, though listened to with respect, did he ever succeed in winning the ear of the 