Librarian of Wandsworth, 1886–1920. Local historian, antiquary, and transcriber of the parish's Churchwardens' Account Books.
— Cecil Tudor Davis, “Wandsworth Churchwardens' Accounts from 1574 to 1603”, Surrey Archaeological Collections, Vol. 18, pp. 96–152 — (complete: all 9 account years transcribed)
— Cecil Tudor Davis, “Wandsworth Churchwardens' Accounts from 1603 to 1620”, Surrey Archaeological Collections, Vol. 19, pp. 145–194 — (complete: 17 account years transcribed)
— Cecil Tudor Davis, “Wandsworth Churchwardens' Accounts from 1620 to 1630”, Surrey Archaeological Collections, Vol. 20, pp. 169–222 — (complete: 10 account years transcribed)
— Cecil Tudor Davis, “Wandsworth Churchwardens' Accounts from 1631 to 1639”, Surrey Archaeological Collections, Vol. 24, pp. 92–161 — (complete: 18 account years/sub-accounts transcribed — the sixth and final instalment of the series)
“Death of Mr. Cecil T. Davis”, local newspaper, publication not recorded on the surviving cutting. Internal dating narrows it to Friday, 2 June 1922 — Davis died “shortly before midnight on Monday” (29 May 1922), and the piece describes the funeral as “held last evening”, with cremation “to-day (Friday)”.
DEATH OF MR. CECIL T. DAVIS.
For 34 Years Librarian of Wandsworth.Although it has been known for some time to be inevitable the news of Mr. Cecil T. Davis's death will not the less be sincerely regretted by hosts of friends and residents in the Borough of Wandsworth. After a comparatively brief illness, from which it was known by himself and his more intimate friends that he could not recover, Mr. Davis passed quietly and peacefully away in his 68th year at his residence, 55, West Hill, Wandsworth, shortly before midnight on Monday.
He was for 34 years Librarian of the West Hill Public Library, Wandsworth, from which position he retired under the age limit in December of 1920. During that long period Mr. Davis earned universal respect and regard by the exercise of the highest qualities in the public service, and by a natural courtesy and charm of manner which impressed all with whom he came in contact. His was a very active career; devoted to almost every branch of civic life and endeavour, and his cheery personality will be much missed from Wandsworth, where he lived and laboured so long and so honourably.
The late Mr. Davis was born in 1854 at Upton St. Leonards, near Gloucester, and was the eldest of four children. His younger brother died Consular Chaplain at Monte Video in 1887; two sisters survive him. He was educated at Painswick Grammar School under his father, at La Villette, Yverdon, Switzerland, Cheltenham Grammar School and University College, Dublin. Whilst an undergraduate at Dublin University he was a volunteer assistant in the University Library, and from this sprang his desire to become a Librarian. Opportunity did not at once offer itself, and for 13 years Mr. Davis was engaged in teaching; but in 1883 he was selected out of a large number of applicants for the post of the senior officer of the Birmingham Reference Library. This post he held until he came to Wandsworth in 1885 [sic — see note below]. Whilst at Birmingham he was elected on the committee of the archæological section of the Birmingham and Midland Institute, before which Society he read two or three papers, was a Churchwarden of St. Margaret's Ladywood, and helped in Smethwick parish. Besides being senior officer of the Reference Library, Mr. Davis was engaged on the large catalogue of the library, more than half of which passed through his hands.
In 1886 Mr. Davis answered an advertisement for a librarian at Wandsworth, and was eventually selected from 1,250 applicants by the Board of Commissioners. He took up his duties on the 1st December of that year, and remained librarian until the 31st December, 1920 — a space of 34 years. The parish of Wandsworth was then a very different place from what it is to-day. Then a penny rate produced under £900; to-day it produces over £2,000. Mr. Davis served under the old Board of Commissioners until their dissolution in 1900, when he was transferred to the service of the Wandsworth Borough Council, finally leaving that service in consequence of being over the age laid down in the Act of Parliament. During his period as librarian at Wandsworth, the Longstaff Reading Room, the generous gift to the parish of the late Dr. Longstaff, senior, was opened, and a delivery station for books was established at Earlsfield, which was in 1898 merged into the Allfarthing-lane Branch Library, the main cost of which was borne by the late Mr. George Nind [name uncertain]. Mr. J. W. Lorden [uncertain], M.P., during his Mayoralty of the Borough, guaranteed for two years the expenses of forming a Library next to the L. and S.W. Bank (now Barclay's) near Earlsfield Station. This was opened under Mr. Davis's direction as a news room and lending library, besides affording residents the privilege of using it as a delivery station for books from the West Hill Library.
As a lay reader the late Mr. Davis did much and very highly appreciated work. He was first appointed to this office in 1880, to the Slad (Stroud). For eleven years, on his coming to Wandsworth, he worked in St. Stephen's parish, and used frequently to take the mission services held, prior to the erection of St. Stephen's Mission Church, in the historical building at Point Pleasant — formerly a dye makers' factory and afterwards the first British School in Wandsworth. As a Diocesan Reader for Southwark the late Mr. Davis gave addresses in most of the churches and parish halls in the Deanery, and in a wide circle outside it. He served as Churchwarden of Wandsworth Parish Church for two years, and was a sidesman there for twenty years.
Mr. Davis was keenly interested in and was quite an authority upon the local history of Wandsworth, having collected a great amount of information on the subject during his long residence here. He was appointed under the old School Board for London as a lecturer in local history to the scholars, and was always ready to lecture to any local Society on the history of this neighbourhood. Mr. Davis was a veritable storehouse of information about ancient Wandsworth. He ran a little booklet of 250 pages, called “Wandsworth Notes and Queries,” and half a column of the British Museum catalogue is taken up with a list of the booklets he had written about Wandsworth and district. He was hoping that on his retirement he might have leisure to put into permanent form some of the information which he had, in his long association with Wandsworth, laboriously collected, and one regrets sincerely that this hope was not realised.
Mr. Davis was fond of archæology, and had been a member of the Bristol and Gloucester Archæological Society since the eighties. He wrote a book on the monumental brasses of Gloucestershire, and had filled the posts of hon. secretary and hon. treasurer of the Monumental Brasses Society. Besides those of Gloucester he had described the brasses of Worcestershire and Herefordshire. He was an honorary corresponding member of the British Archæological Association for many years and had read papers before this Society, the Royal Archæological Institute and the St. Paul's Cathedral Society. He was also a member of the Surrey Archæological Society, to the transactions of which he contributed a transcription of the early Church Accounts of the parish of Wandsworth from 1545 to 1639.
Educational work found in the late Mr. Davis a warm and active supporter. Especially was he interested in technical education, and when a start was made in this direction in Wandsworth, more than 25 years ago, Sir Henry (then Mr.) Kimber suggested that, with the consent of the Commissioners of Public Libraries and Museums, Mr. Davis should be appointed Hon. Secretary to the local movement. These duties he carried out until the opening of the Wandsworth Technical Institute, when he was elected one of the Governors of the Institution. Mr. Davis also served for some length of time on the Committee of the Putney School of Art.
When war broke out Mr. Davis joined up as a Special Constable, served in the ranks of the Wandsworth Section, and was afterwards appointed Sergeant of the Observation Squad, whose duty was to keep watch and ward on the top of the Fire Stations. Altogether he put in more than a thousand duties as Special Constable. He was also National Registration Officer, at first for the whole Borough, and afterwards for the women's section, when the male section was transferred to Mr. Bradley at the Putney Library. Like his brother Librarians he was also Coal Overseer of his parish, and Assistant Food Controller of his Ward — in fact one is almost tempted to say that the illness which culminated in his death was the aftermath of strenuous war work.
Mr. Davis was twice married. His first wife was Fanny Rachel, second daughter of Mr. Caleb Card, of Liverpool, by whom he had a family of five sons and one daughter. One son died in infancy, two were killed in the war, and two — Messrs. Tudor Davis and Douglas Caird Davis — are living. All four sons served with the forces in the war, and the deceased's daughter, Muriel (now Mrs. Chapman), was at the same time a member of the V.A.D. Thus the whole family were engaged in war work. Mr. Davis's second wife was Miss Cecile Mary Amy, of St. Martin, Jersey, whom he married in 1915, and with whom, as with the other members of the family, sincere sympathy is felt.
The funeral service was held last evening in Wandsworth Parish Church, and is being followed to-day (Friday) by cremation at Golders Green.
[sic — see note above]: the piece states Davis “came to Wandsworth in 1885,” but also that he answered the advertisement in 1886, took up duties “1st December of that year,” and served exactly “34 years” to retirement on 31 December 1920 — arithmetic that only works with 1886. This looks like the paper's own slip, not a transcription error here.