Horace Davey, Baron Davey (30 August 1833 – 20 February 1907) was an
English judge and
Liberal politician who sat in the
House of Commons in two periods between 1880 and 1892.
Davey was the son of Peter Davey of Horton, Buckinghamshire. He was educated at
Rugby School and
University College, Oxford. He took a double first-class in classics and mathematics, was senior mathematical scholar and Eldon law scholar, and was elected a fellow of his college. In 1861, he was called to the
Bar at
Lincoln's Inn, and read in the chambers of Mr. (afterwards Vice-Chancellor) Wickens.
Devoting himself to the
Chancery side, he soon acquired a large practice, and in 1875 became a
Queen's Counsel (Q.C.) In 1880, he was returned to
Parliament as a
Liberal for
Christchurch,
Hampshire (now in
Dorset), but lost his seat in 1885. On
Gladstone's return to power in 1886, he was appointed
solicitor-general and was
knighted, but had no seat in the
House of Commons, being defeated at both
Ipswich and
Stockport in 1886; in 1888 he found a seat at
Stockton-on-Tees, but was rejected by that constituency in 1892.
Davey was standing counsel to the University of Oxford, and senior counsel to the Charity Commissioners, and was engaged in all the important Chancery
suits of his time. Among the chief leading cases in which he took a prominent part were those of
The Mogul Steamship Company v. M'Gregor, Gow & Co., 1892,......
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