Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/179

 footmen. He took three diamond rings and a gold watch, besides reproaching her for painting her face and being niggardly. Between Gloucester and Worcester he robbed Sir Thomas Day of 60l., after inveigling him into a declaration that the county would make good any money lost on the highway if ‘betwixt sun and sun.’

Davis had begun this career, as an experiment, after the king's death in 1648–9, when twenty-two years old. His wife had no suspicion of him, and in all the ordinary relations of life he was eminently respectable. His charming manners enabled him to secure the fidelity of accomplices and attract the confidence of his victims. He retired from his profession for a few years, but was tempted back to the highway, in hope of making up a large sum for purchase of adjacent land. He had fallen out of practice, and was recognised. Soon afterwards, being discovered in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, at that time a sanctuary, he had a narrow escape, and shot a pursuing butcher. Being apprehended he was committed to Newgate, tried for the murder at the Old Bailey Sessions, 11–17 Dec. 1690, and his previous crimes became known. He was condemned to be hanged at the end of Salisbury Court (instead of Tyburn, as usual), where he had shot the butcher. He died on 22 Dec. 1690, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and was afterwards hung in chains on Bagshot Heath. He had left affectionate messages for ‘Old Mobb,’ who was suspected of having betrayed him. Mobb was hanged at Tyburn on Friday, 30 May 1691.

According to George Daniel [q. v.] of Canonbury, the ‘Golden Farmer’ had been a corn-chandler in Thames Street, selling by day and despoiling the farmers at night. The contemporary ballad, his ‘Last Farewell,’ admits his close connection with ‘a gang of robbers, notorious hardy highwaymen who did like ruffians reign;’ also with housebreakers and burglars, clearing 500l. one time, in money and plate.

[Captain Alexander Smith's History of the Lives of the most noted Highwaymen, &c. 2nd edit. 1714, i. 1–30; Compleat History, ib. 1719, i. 48 and following 21 pp.; Captain Charles Johnson's General Hist. of the Lives and Adventures of the most famous Highwaymen, &c., fol., 1734, pp. 106–8, a narrative copied from Smith's, with the errors of dates uncorrected; Narcissus Luttrell's Brief Relation, ii. 144, 147, 148, 253; Bagford Collection of Broadsides, Brit. Mus. Case, 39 K. vol. ii. fol. 74; The Golden Farmer's Last Farewell, to the tune of the Rich Merchantman, printed for P. Brooksby, &c., 1690; reprinted verbatim, with introduction and notes, in Bagford Ballads, 1877, 1st div. pp. 239–46; The Golden Farmer, or the Last Crime, a domestic drama, by Benjamin Webster, acted at the Victoria Theatre, 26 Dec. 1832, and printed in Cumberland's Minor Theatre, vol. vi., with remarks by D. G.; also many chapbooks, chiefly compiled from Smith and Johnson.] 

DAVIS, WILLIAM (1771–1807), mathematician, was editor of the ‘Companion to the Gentleman's Diary’ from its commencement in 1798 to his death. The ‘Companion’ was afterwards edited by John Hampshire, who died in 1825; and it ceased with the number for 1827. Davis was a bookseller at 2 Albion Buildings, Aldersgate Street, London, whence he issued catalogues. He described himself as a member of the Mathematical and Philosophical Society. In 1803 he published a revised edition of Motte's translation of Sir Isaac Newton's ‘Principles of Natural Philosophy,’ with additions and a life of Newton. In 1805 he revised Thomas Simpson's ‘Fluxions,’ which he published with a life of the author. Davis also wrote ‘A Complete Course of Land Surveying,’ ‘An Easy and Comprehensive Description and Use of the Globes and Keys,’ to Bonnycastle's ‘Algebra,’ ‘Mensuration,’ and ‘Arithmetic.’ He edited Colin Maclaurin's ‘Fluxions’ (1801), Rowe's ‘Fluxions’ (1809), and the sixth edition of Fenning's ‘Algebraist's Companion.’ He died on 8 Feb. 1807, aged 36. His widow Anne afterwards married J. S. Dickson, a bookseller and printer of 18 Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row, who afterwards moved (1812) to Bartholomew Close, Smithfield. In 1814 the name of the business was changed to Davis & Dickson, booksellers and printers, of 17 St. Martin's-le-Grand, Newgate Street, London. Mrs. Anne Dickson died on 15 Oct. 1822, when the business came to an end. The sale of the stock took place by auction in November and December 1834, and May 1836. The sale catalogue was called by De Morgan ‘a most remarkable catalogue.’

[Companion to the Gentleman's Diary, 1798–1827; and books mentioned above.] 

DAVIS, WILLIAM (1812–1873), landscape and portrait painter, was born in Dublin in 1812, where he studied in the Academy of Arts, and coming to England practised here as a portrait-painter. He was first taken notice of by Mr. John Miller of Liverpool, who encouraged him to devote himself exclusively to landscape-painting. The picture called ‘Harrowing’ in the International Exhibition of 1862 gave him a name in London. When elected a member of the Liverpool Academy, he was appointed professor of painting there. He exhibited at the Royal Academy sixteen landscapes between 1851 and 1872. In 1851 he resided at 21 Chapel Place,