Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Davies, Jonathan
DAVIES, JONATHAN (1736–1809), provost of Eton, was born in 1736, of obscure parentage. He was educated by the favour of Edward Barnard [q. v.] at Eton, and under the same protection proceeded in 1755 to King's College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1760 and that of M.A. in 1763. Subsequently he returned to Eton as assistant-master, and on the resignation of Dr. Foster in 1773 was appointed headmaster. The following year he became rector of Scaldwell in Northamptonshire, and in 1781, on the death of his old friend Provost Barnard, he was made a canon of Windsor. This preferment he resigned in 1791, on being appointed to succeed Dr. Roberts as provost of Eton. He died on 5 Dec. 1809, and was buried at Eton.
In his will he remembered the places of his education. To Eton College, besides a provision for task and declamation prizes, he bequeathed an exhibition for a superannuated Eton scholar. He left 1,000l. to found a classical scholarship in the university of Cambridge, like the Craven scholarship, the benefits of which he had himself once enjoyed. At the first examination for this scholarship in 1810 the prize was won by John Patteson of King's, who became an eminent judge. The provost also left 2,000l. to King's College, Cambridge, in augmentation of a fund for the purchase of advowsons.
[Jesse's Memoirs of Celebrated Etonians; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iv. 492; Harwood's Alumni Etonenses, p. 31.]