After some time as a Fellow at the
Shakespeare Institute, a lecturer at the
University of Sydney, and as lecturer and senior lecturer at
Birmingham University, he was appointed Professor of English at Saint David's University College (later
University of Wales Trinity Saint David) and then at the University of Kent and
De Montfort University, Leicester. He was later an
emeritus professor of English at
Glyndŵr University. In 1992, he was president of the
Bibliographical Society and edited its journal,
The Library, for 12 years. He received the Society's Gold Medal in 2003. From 1991 to 2005 he was Secretary of the
Economic and Social Research Council in London. Between 1986 and 1998 he was also Honorary Steward of
Westminster Abbey. In 1998, assisted by his wife, Sheila Davison, and
Ian Angus he edited the 20-volume
The Complete Works of George Orwell (
Secker & Warburg, 1998). In 2012 Davison announced the launch of
The Orwell Society and was made an honorary founding member the following year. In 2013, he edited Orwell's
Diaries and
Orwell: A Life in Letters. ==Personal life==