Randall Thomas Davidson
7 April 1848 -
25 May 1930

Family

Randall Davidson was the eldest of four children of Henry Davidson, a merchant of Leith, and Henrietta Swinson. Both parents were Presbyterians, and Randall Davidson was baptized at their home in Edinburgh. He married Edith Tait, second daughter of the archbishop, in 1878. They had no children.

Education

Davidson was sent to Harrow in 1862. In 1867 he went to Trinity College, Oxford, from which he graduated B.A. in 1871.

Church Appointments and Service

He was ordained deacon in 1874 and priest in the following year. He served as curate at Dartford, Kent, from 1874 to 1877, at which year he became resident chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury, A. C. Tait. In 1883 he was installed as Dean of Windsor and was appointed the queen's domestic chaplain. As dean, Davidson was the intimate counselor of Archbishop Benson. On 25 April 1891 he was consecrated Bishop of Rochester and was appointed clerk of the closet to the queen. In 1895 he was translated to the See of Winchester. On 12 February 1903 Davidson was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, from which position he resigned on 12 November 1928. Two days afterwards, he was created Baron Davidson of Lambeth.

Noteworthy Publications

While Dean of Windsor, Davidson wrote his two-volume Life of Archibald Campbell Tait (1891). Other publications include The Lambeth Conferences of 1867, 1878, and 1888 (1896), The Christian Opportunity (1904), Captains and Comrades in the Faith (1911), The Character and Call of the Church of England (1912), and The Testing of a Nation (1919).

Footnote

"From 1898 to 1901 he was actively engaged in the ritual crisis in the Church. . . . He was always on the side of moderation, but was not perhaps sufficiently appreciative of the high churchman's basic principles. . . .

"Primate during a most difficult period, Davidson certainly succeeded in giving a strong Christian witness in national life, and in maintaining the comprehensiveness of the Church of England, and especially freedom for scholarship and inquiry. . . .

"His capacities were essentially those of a chairman, and a chairman of extraordinary fairness. He was a most able administrator, while at the same time a man of great simplicity of character, and this won him the friendship and trust of men of widely different points of view." -- DNB 1922-30: 240-48