His parents possessed considerable landed property in Midlothian. Educated partly in the university of Edinburgh and partly in France, Italy and Switzerland, and early acquiring an interest in natural history, he benefited greatly by acquaintance with foreign languages and literature, and with men of science in different countries.
He was induced in 1837, through the influence of Leopold von Buch, to devote his special attention to the brachiopoda, and in course of time he became the highest authority on this group. The great task of his life was the Monograph of British Fossil Brachiopoda, published by the Palaeontographical Society (1850-1886). This work, with supplements, comprises six quarto volumes with more than 200 plates drawn on stone by the author.
He also prepared an exhaustive memoir on Recent Brachiopoda, published by the Linnean Society. He was elected FRS in 1857. He was awarded in 1865 the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London, and in 1870 a Royal medal by the Royal Society; and in 1882 the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the university of St Andrews.
He died at Brighton on the 14th of October 1885, bequeathing his fine collection of recent and fossil brachiopoda to the British Museum.
See biography with portrait and list of papers in Geol. Mag. for 1871, p. 145.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
Thomas was a skilled glassmaker having learnt his trade in his fathers glass house and was very instrumental in the design and development of Davidson's domestic glassware at the turn of the twentieth century.
Davidson's range of glassware was considerably increased during the 1920s, which led to the doubling of the numbers of female employees in both the finishing and packing departments.
ThomasDavidson was not only a first class designer but a superb businessman and he saw the threat of foreign competition and with his skill he was able to look at his own firm and recognise what processes they had that could create something unique on the glassware market.
WILLIAM THOMASDAVIDSON, an old soldier, a pioneer in Western Kansas, and an expert abstractor at Abilene, was born in a log house on a farm in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, July 26, 1842.
Davidson started to keep a diary, and it illustrates the persistence of his character that he has never missed a day in itemizing some fact connected with his individual history or otherwise, and the record now covers a period of fifty-seven years.
Davidson is not only an expert in the general technique of abstracting, but has almost perfect penmanship, acquired by long practice, and every paper that comes from his office bear the stamp of authority and of neatness and accuracy.
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