Son of John Davies, cleric and philosopher. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Hulsean Lecturer, Cambridge, Lady Margaret Preacher at Oxford, chaplain to Queen Victoria, an advocate of higher education of women, and an associate of Frederick Denison Maurice. He was joint author (with D. J. Vaughan) of a well-known translation of The Republic of Plato
He was one of the 31 founding members of the Alpine Club and one of the most successful of the early climbers of the Alps. With the guide Johann Zumtaugwald and other guides, he was the first to climb the Dom (14,942 ft.), the highest mountain entirely within Switzerland (on 11 September 1858) and, in 1862, the Täsch-horn (14,700 ft.). He ascended the Finsteraarhorn as early as 29 August 1857. He publised only one article on mountaineering, 'An ascent of one of the Mischabel-Hörner, called the Dom' (Peaks, Passes and Glaciers, first series, 1859) but Leslie Stephen, one of his pupils and the best writer of his generation on mountains, thought highly of him.
He married Mary Compton, and their daughter Margaret Llewelyn Davies (1861-1944) was a women's rights activist and pioneer of the Co-operative movement.
Published date: 2001
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