Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/140

 mineral in North Wales. Another interesting paper from his pen, ‘On the Relation of the Upper Carboniferous Strata of Shropshire and Denbigh to Beds usually called Permian,’ appeared in the same publication for 1877. Davies was elected a fellow of the Geological Society in 1872. The Geologists' Association of London visited the North Wales border in 1876, and Davies acted as their guide; he also contributed to their ‘Proceedings’ a paper on the ‘Overlap of the Geological Formations’ in that district.

Besides the numerous papers which he contributed to various periodicals, Davies was the author of several standard books on economic geology. His ‘Treatise on Slate and Slate Quarrying’ appeared in 1878, and reached a second edition in 1880. In the preface to this book he expresses his obligations to his son, Mr. E. H. Davies. An important ‘Treatise on Metalliferous Minerals and Mining’ was published a little later; and the series was completed by a ‘Treatise on Earthy and other Minerals, and Mining,’ issued in 1884.

Davies also carried off several ‘Eisteddfod’ prizes for essays on geological subjects, including one of thirty guineas at Carnarvon in 1880 for an account of the ‘Metalliferous Deposits of Denbighshire and Flintshire;’ and another of twenty guineas at Liverpool in 1884 for a description of the ‘Fisheries of Wales.’ He was also a lay preacher, and the author of a volume of lay sermons entitled ‘The Christ for all the Ages.’

Davies was fully prepared to take advantage of the commercial prosperity which culminated about 1873. His success as a mining engineer was insured by his love for investigation, his thorough self-training, and his high reputation for integrity. Most of the mining undertakings upon which he reported favourably turned out well, and his connection soon extended far beyond North Wales. Between 1880 and 1885 several large quarries were opened under his direction in the south of France; one large quarry was developed by him in Germany; and he paid no fewer than nine visits to Norway upon mining business in that country. While returning from a trip to Norway he died suddenly of heart disease, on board the steamer Angelo, on 19 Sept. 1885.

Besides the articles named above, Davies was a frequent contributor to the ‘British Architect,’ the ‘British Quarterly,’ and several mining journals. He left incomplete an elaborate treatise upon the ‘Geology of North Wales,’ on which he had spent much time and trouble, and which he intended to be his principal work.



DAVIES, EDWARD (1756–1831), Welsh antiquary, was born on 7 June 1756 at a farm called Hendre Einion, in the parish of Llanvareth in Radnorshire, about three miles from Builth. His father was the farmer of the small estate of which his uncle was the proprietor. When six years old he met with an accident which permanently weakened his sight and caused blindness in his old age. Though in an English-speaking part of the country he learned Welsh surreptitiously, and wrote hymns and poems before he was twenty. He was never, however, fluent in colloquial Welsh. After spending only a year at the College Grammar School at Brecon, he opened a school at Hay in 1775, and was ordained as curate of Bacton in Herefordshire in 1779. He served this and several other cures besides keeping on his school. At this period he conducted five services and travelled thirty miles every Sunday for 30l. a year. From 1783 to 1799 he was master of the grammar school at Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire. In 1783 he married his first wife, Margaret Smith of Whittington. His leisure was devoted to Celtic antiquarian studies, and to poetry and divinity. He made the acquaintance of Owen Pughe, Edward Williams, and other leading Welsh antiquaries. Some of the poems of the ‘Myvyrian Archaiology’ were taken from his transcripts. In 1799 he exchanged his hard work at Sodbury for the lighter curacy of Olveston, also in Gloucestershire. Theophilus Jones, the Breconshire historian, who was his contemporary at school, exerted himself to obtain for him some preferment, as well as to collect subscribers for his works. At last in 1802 he secured the perpetual curacy of Llanbedr, in his native county, and in 1805 became rector of Bishopston, in Gower, but he continued to live at Olveston till 1813, when he removed to Bishopston. In 1810 [q. v.], charmed to find that ‘he was not a mere black-letter man but an orthodox divine and admirable theological writer,’ gave him the prebend of Llangunllo in Christ's College, Brecon. In 1816 he married a second wife, Susanna Jeffreys, and was made chancellor of Brecon and rector of Llanfair Orllwyn in Cardiganshire. After 1823 his health became too bad to allow the continuance of his clerical duties. In 1824 he was elected an associate of the Royal Society of Literature, and thus obtained 100l. a year. He died on 7 Jan. 1831, and was buried at Bishopston.

With little regular education, small command of books, bad health, and laborious duties, Davies managed to find learning and