Sneyd Davies

Sneyd Davies (30 October 1709–20 January 1769) was an English poet, academic and churchman,

Life

He was born on 30 October 1709 at Shrewsbury, Shropshire,^[1] where, at St Mary's Church, he was baptised the next day.^[2] His father, John Davies, was rector of Kingsland, Herefordshire, and prebendary of Hereford and St Asaph Cathedrals. His mother, Honora, was daughter of Ralph Sneyd, and married, first, William Ravenscroft in 1690, who died in 1698, and secondly, John Davies, by whom she had four children, Sneyd being the second son. He was on the foundation at Eton College, and later became scholar and fellow of King's College, Cambridge.^[1] At Eton he made the acquaintance of Charles Pratt, who also became a Fellow of King's College, and of Frederick Cornwallis.

Davies wrote poems at school, and was noted for scholarship. His father died in 1732, and left him the

Cornwallis, on becoming bishop of Lichfield in 1749, appointed Davies to a chaplaincy, and later appointed him master of St. John's Hospital in 1751, prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral, and in 1755 archdeacon of Derby. Davies became known in the literary circles of Lichfield; Anna Seward, then a girl, thought him a spirit "beatified before his time". Davies was interested in further preferment, but when Pratt as Lord Camden eventually offered him a small living in the neighbourhood of Kingsland in 1768, the health of Davies, who had a stroke in 1763,^[3] was breaking, and he died on 20 January 1769 aged 59.

Davies left the living of Kingsland and his whole fortune to Richard Evans; he was the nephew of his brother-in-law Henry Morgan of Henblas.^[4]

Works

Davies's poems were not collected. They included Latin verses, imitations of

Some letters, really written by James Davis and called Origines Divisianæ; or the Antiquities of the Devizes, in familiar letters to a friend (1754), have been attributed to Sneyd Davies.

References

• "Davies, Sneyd" . Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

Notes