Author: Davidson, Anthony
Biography:
DAVIDSON, Anthony (1754-1833: ancestry.co.uk)
He was born on 5 Jan. 1754 at Kelton, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, the son of Patrick Davidson and his wife Jannet Gilchrist. Several sources state that he was educated at Edinburgh University (Baker, Watkins, CCEd) and the title page of Sermons in Blank Verse lists him as AB, but he does not appear in the registers. He seems to have married Elizabeth Campar (1749-1821) on 26 Dec. 1782 at Holy Rood, Southampton. By 1783 they had moved to Lymington, Hampshire, where at least six children were born and where he ran an academy for twenty-two years, retiring in Dec. 1805 due to ill-health. He held the Curacy of Milton and Pylewell, Hants, concurrently with the academy and on retirement became Curate at Dereham, Wiltshire, where he died on 5 Jan. 1833. His wife had also died at Dereham, in 1821. A son, George Smith Davidson (1790-1863), emigrated to Australia where he ran an academy in Sydney. The Biographia Dramatica (1812) lists seven dramatic works by Davidson, including tragedies, comic operas, and a farce, and noted some of the performances, but Stephen Jones who probably wrote the entry had not seen printed copies of them and none have been located in libraries. He also states that Davidson had published The Seasons in the Scottish dialect, but this is an error: that work was Thoughts on the Seasons, &c. Partly in the Scottish Dialect (1789) by David Davidson (q.v.), who may have been related. (Scotland’s People; David Erskine Baker, Isaac Reed, and Stephen Jones, Biographia Dramatica [1812] 1.1, 177; Watkins, 87; Salisbury and Winchester Journal 7 Jan. 1788, 24 May 1802, 9 Jan. 1804, 15 Sept. 1817, 26 Mar. 1821, 14 Jan. 1833; GM Mar. 1833, 281; N&Q 24 Feb. 1872, 171, and 4 May 1872, 375-6) AA
Other Names:
- Anth. Davidson