Davidson, John (1857–1909)

Scottish poet and dramatist. His first success came with Fleet Street Eclogues (1893, 1896) followed by Ballads and Songs (1894). His modern, realistic idiom, as in ‘Thirty Bob a Week’, influenced T S Eliot.

Davidson was born in Barrhead, Renfrewshire, and educated at Edinburgh. He became a teacher, and in 1890 went to London. He drowned near Penzance, Cornwall, in circumstances pointing to suicide.

In addition to poetry, he also wrote novels and poetic plays, such as Godfrida (1898) and The Theatrocrat (1905); his satiric and didactic works include The Testament of a Vivisector, The Testament of a Man Forbid (1901) and The Testament of an Empire Builder (1902). The dramatic work God and Mammon was published in 1907 and his last book of verse, Fleet Street and other Poems, in 1909.