Davies

Davies, Arthur Bowen, 1862-1928, American painter and lithographer, b. Utica, N.Y., studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League, New York City. In 1893 he traveled in Europe and exhibited successfully on his return. A president of the Society of Independent Artists, he was largely responsible for the famous Armory Show of 1913. He was also a member of the Eight. A romantic artist, he favored symbolic pictures of the female nude in idyllic landscapes. Characteristic are his Maya, Mirror of Illusions (Art Inst., Chicago) and The Dawning (Brooklyn Mus., N.Y.). Less known are his lithographs and watercolors.

Davies, Emily (Sarah Emily Davies), 1830-1921, British feminist, co-founder of Girton College, Cambridge. Educated at home, she became (1862) secretary of a committee to obtain the admission of women to university examinations. Out of this undertaking grew another committee, of which she was also secretary, to form a college for women. The college was organized at Hitchin, Hertfordshire, in 1869 and in 1873 transferred to Cambridge as Girton College. Davies was mistress of the college (1873-75) and its honorary secretary until 1904. From 1866 she was closely associated with the English woman-suffrage movement and was active in organizing the first woman-suffrage petition presented to Parliament by John Stuart Mill in 1866. She wrote Higher Education of Women (1866) and Thoughts on Some Questions Relating to Women (1910).

Davies, John: see Davies of Hereford, John.

Davies, Sir John, 1569-1626, English poet. A successful lawyer, he served as solicitor general and attorney general in Ireland from 1603 to 1619. His works include Nosce Teipsum (1599), a long poem on the immortality of the soul; Orchestra; or, A Poem of Dancing (1596), an explication of the order of the universe; Hymns of Astraea (1599), acrostics on the name Elizabeth Regina; epigrams; sonnets; and tracts on the state of Ireland.

Davies, Joseph Edward, 1876-1958, American diplomat, b. Watertown, Wis. Admitted to the bar in 1901, he was commissioner of corporations (1913-15) and chairman (1915-16) of the Federal Trade Commission, before serving (1919) as President Wilson's economic adviser at the Paris Peace Conference. He later served as ambassador to the USSR (1937-38), ambassador to Belgium (1938-40), and special assistant (1940) to Secretary of State Cordell Hull. During World War II, Davies was (1942-46) chairman of the President's War Relief Control Board. In 1945 he attended the Potsdam Conference. His book, Mission to Moscow (1941), gave a favorable picture of the USSR.

Davies, Sir Louis Henry, 1845-1924, Canadian jurist, b. Charlottetown, P.E.I. While a member of the provincial legislature (1872-79), he also served (1876-79) as prime minister of Prince Edward Island. From 1882 to 1901 he sat as a Liberal in the Canadian House of Commons and held a cabinet post from 1896 to 1901. Appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1901, he became chief justice in 1918. He was knighted in 1897.

Davies, Sir Peter Maxwell, 1934-, English composer and conductor, b. Salford. He was co-founder (1967) of the Pierrot Players instrumental ensemble, later reinvented as the Fires of London (1970-87), which he directed and for which he wrote many pieces, e.g., the highly emotional Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969), probably his best-known work. He has composed in numerous idioms and moods, from early expressionist works to later more lyrical and reflective pieces; his interest in medieval and Renaissance music is clear in Shakespeare Music (1964) and other compositions. Extremely prolific, Davies has written choral works, e.g., O magnum mysterium (1960); operas, e.g., The Lighthouse (1980) and The Doctor of Myddfai (1996); several symphonies, e.g., Antarctic Symphony (2002); and numerous concerti, vocal works, chamber music, theater pieces, and many others. He has served as conductor/composer of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Glasgow (1985-94), the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London (1992-2000), and the BBC Philharmonic, Manchester (1992-2001); in 2004 he was appointed Master of the Queen's Musick. He was knighted in 1987.

Davies, Robertson (William Robertson Davies), 1913-95, Canadian writer and editor. After receiving a B.Litt. from Oxford (1938), he joined the Old Vic Theatre Company before returning to Canada (1940) as an editor. In 1963 he became the first master of Massey College, a graduate college of the Univ. of Toronto; he retired in 1981. During his long literary career he produced more than 30 works of fiction as well as plays, essays, and criticism. Among the most important themes explored in his densely plotted novels are the moral dimensions of life, the isolation of the human spirit, and humanity's growth from innocence to experience.

Davies's three novel trilogies deal with life in fictional Ontario villages. The Salterton Trilogy—Tempest-Tost (1951), Leaven of Malice (1954), and A Mixture of Frailties (1958)—is a satiric romance that explores Canadian life and culture. The Deptford Trilogy—Fifth Business (1970), The Manticore (1972), and World of Wonders (1975)—is a richly plotted study of three individuals' journeys to self-discovery that mingles humor, mystery, magic, grotesqueries, and the Jungian theory of archetypes. Later novels include his third trilogy, the Cornish—The Rebel Angels (1981), Bred in the Bone (1985), and The Lyre of Orpheus (1989), as well as The Cunning Man (1995).

Davies, Samuel, 1723-61, American Presbyterian clergyman, b. New Castle co., Del. Ordained as an evangelist, he went in 1747 to Hanover co., Va., where he was soon the center of a revival that became part of the movement known as the Great Awakening. He went with Gilbert Tennent to England and Scotland in 1753 to raise funds for the support of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) and was its president from 1759 to 1761.

Davies, William Henry, 1871-1940, British poet, b. Wales. Leaving school at a young age, Davies lived for a number of years as a peddler and a beggar in the United States and England. His first attempt at poetry, The Soul's Destroyer (1905), printed at his own expense, won the favorable attention of G. B. Shaw. Thereafter Davies's success was assured. The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp (1908) describes his vagabond life. Davies was a prolific poet; his favorite themes were nature and the hardships of the poor.

(born Sept. 8, 1934, Manchester, Eng.) British composer. He studied in England, Italy, and the U.S. He cofounded the contemporary ensemble The Fires of London and was its musical director (1970–87); he wrote many of his works for the group. In 1970 he moved to Scotland's remote Orkney Islands. He wrote many musical theatre works and conducted orchestras worldwide. His most famous compositions are Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969) and An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise (1985); his other works include Miss Donnithorne's Maggot (1974); the operas Taverner (1968), The Martyrdom of St. Magnus (1976), and The Lighthouse (1980); eight symphonies; and numerous concerti.

Learn more about Davies, Sir Peter Maxwell with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Aug. 28, 1913, Thamesville, Ont., Can.—died Dec. 2, 1995, Orangeville, Ont.) Canadian novelist and playwright. Educated at the University of Oxford, Davies for many years edited the Peterborough (Ont.) Examiner and taught at the University of Toronto. He is best known for three trilogies: the Deptford trilogy consists of Fifth Business (1970), The Manticore (1972), and World of Wonders (1975), novels examining the intersecting lives of three men from a small Canadian town; the Salterton trilogy, three comedies of manners set in a provincial university town; and the so-called Cornish trilogy—The Rebel Angels (1981), What's Bred in the Bone (1985), and The Lyre of Orpheus (1988). Davies's novels are notable for satirizing bourgeois provincialism and exploring the relationship between mysticism and art.

Learn more about Davies, (William) Robertson with a free trial on Britannica.com.

(born Sept. 8, 1934, Manchester, Eng.) British composer. He studied in England, Italy, and the U.S. He cofounded the contemporary ensemble The Fires of London and was its musical director (1970–87); he wrote many of his works for the group. In 1970 he moved to Scotland's remote Orkney Islands. He wrote many musical theatre works and conducted orchestras worldwide. His most famous compositions are Eight Songs for a Mad King (1969) and An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise (1985); his other works include Miss Donnithorne's Maggot (1974); the operas Taverner (1968), The Martyrdom of St. Magnus (1976), and The Lighthouse (1980); eight symphonies; and numerous concerti.

Learn more about Davies, Sir Peter Maxwell with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Mandy Rice-Davies (born 21 October, 1944) is famous mainly for her minor role in the Profumo affair which discredited the Conservative government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1963.

Background and link to Stephen Ward & Christine Keeler

She was born Marilyn Rice-Davies in Pontyates near Llanelli, Wales, and later moved to Shirley in Solihull, England. As a teenager, she appeared much older than her actual age and as such, at age 15, she got a job as a clothes model at Marshall & Snelgrove, a department store in Birmingham. At age 16 she came to London and appeared as 'Miss Austin' at the Earls Court Motor Show. She then got a job as a dancer at Murray's Cabaret Club in Soho where she met Christine Keeler who introduced her, on one evening, to her friend, the well-connected osteopath Stephen Ward, and to an ex-lover, the notorious slum landlord Peter Rachman. Rice-Davies subsequently became Rachman's mistress and was set up in the same house where he had previously kept Keeler, at 1 Bryanston Mews West, Marylebone. Rice-Davies often visited Keeler at the house she shared with Ward at Wimpole Mews, Marylebone, and, after Keeler had moved elsewhere, briefly resided there, herself, between September and December 1962. On December 14 1962 whilst Keeler was visiting Rice-Davies at the Wimpole Mews house, one of Keeler's boyfriends, John Edgecombe, attempted to gain entrance and fired several times at the door with a gun in his possession. The subsequent trial of Edgecombe brought attention to the girls' involvement with Ward's social set, and intimacy with many powerful people, including the then Viscount Astor at whose stately home of Cliveden Keeler met the War Minister John Profumo. Profumo's brief relationship with Keeler was at the centre of the affair that caused him to resign from the government in June 1963, though Rice-Davies, herself, never met him.

"He would, wouldn't he?"

While giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Ward, who was charged with living off the immoral earnings of Keeler and Rice-Davies, the latter made the quip for which she is most remembered and which is frequently used by politicians in Britain. When the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied having an affair or having even met her, she replied, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?". She traded on the notoriety the trial brought her, comparing herself to Nelson's mistress, Lady Hamilton. She converted to Judaism and married an Israeli businessman, Rafi Shauli, going on to open a string of successful nightclubs and restaurants in Tel Aviv. The restaurants and nightclubs, which bore her name, were called: Mandy's, Mandy's Cherry and Mandy's Singing Bamboo. Rice-Davies also parlayed her minor fame into a series of unsuccessful pop singles for the Ember label in the mid-'60s, including Close Your Eyes and You Got What It Takes.

In 1980, with Shirley Flack she co-wrote her autobiography, Mandy. In 1989, she wrote a novel titled Communism and You.

In the 1989 film about the Profumo affair titled Scandal, actress Bridget Fonda portrayed Rice-Davies.

"I want Mandi"

At the height of the Profumo scandal, the first prime minister of independent Malaya (now Malaysia) Tunku Abdul Rahman arrived in London for a visit. At a reception party at London Airport when asked what he wanted to do first, he replied "I want Mandi" which shocked the reception party because they did not know that "Mandi" means "take a bath" in Malay.

Once in an interview she once described her life as " one slow descent into respectability".

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