Early life ,
Newport, Wales. The son of an
iron moulder, Davies was born at 6 Portland Street in the
Pillgwenlly district of
Newport,
Monmouthshire, a busy port. He had an older brother, Francis Gomer Boase, born with part of his skull displaced, who Davies' biographer describes as "simple and peculiar". In 1874 a sister, Matilda, was born. In November 1874, William was aged three when his father died. The next year his mother, Mary Anne Davies, remarried as Mrs Joseph Hill. She agreed that care of the three children should pass to their paternal grandparents, Francis and Lydia Davies, who ran the nearby
Church House Inn at 14 Portland Street. His grandfather Francis Boase Davies, originally from
Cornwall, had been a sea captain. Davies was related to the British actor Sir
Henry Irving, known as Cousin Brodribb to the family. He later recalled his grandmother speaking of Irving as "the cousin who brought disgrace on us." According to a neighbour's memories, she wore "pretty little caps, with bebe ribbon, tiny roses and puce trimmings."
Osbert Sitwell, introducing the 1943
Collected Poems of W. H. Davies, recalled Davies telling him that along with his grandparents and himself, his home held "an imbecile brother, a sister... a maidservant, a dog, a cat, a parrot, a dove and a canary bird." Sitwell also recounts how Davies's grandmother, a
Baptist, was "of a more austere and religious turn of mind than her husband." In 1879 the family moved to Raglan Street, Newport, then to Upper Lewis Street, where William attended Temple School. In 1883 he moved to Alexandra Road School and the following year was arrested, as one of five schoolmates charged with stealing handbags. He was given twelve strokes of the
birch. In 1885 Davies wrote his first poem entitled "Death." In ''Poet's Pilgrimage'' (1918) Davies recalls that, at the age of 14, he was left with orders to sit with his dying grandfather. He missed the final moments of his grandfather's life as he was too engrossed in reading "a very interesting book of wild adventure."
Delinquent to "supertramp" After school, Davies worked as an
ironmonger. In November 1886 his grandmother signed Davies up for a five-year apprenticeship to a local picture-frame maker. Davies never enjoyed the craft. He left Newport, took casual work and began his travels.
The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp (1908) covers his American life in 1893–1899, including adventures and characters from his travels as a drifter. During the period, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean at least seven times on cattle ships. He travelled through many states doing seasonal work. Davies took advantage of the corrupt system of "
boodle" to pass the winter in
Michigan by agreeing to be locked in a series of jails. Here with his fellow tramps Davies enjoyed relative comfort in "card-playing, singing, smoking, reading, relating experiences, and occasionally taking exercise or going out for a walk." At one point on his way to
Memphis, Tennessee, he lay alone in a swamp for three days and nights suffering from
malaria. and his biographer
Richard J. Stonesifer suggested this event, more than any other, led Davies to become a professional poet. Davies writes, "I bore this accident with an outward fortitude that was far from the true state of my feelings. Thinking of my present helplessness caused me many a bitter moment, but I managed to impress all comers with a false indifference.... I was soon home again, away less than four months; but all the wildness was taken out of me, and my adventures after this were not of my seeking, but the result of circumstances." Davies took an ambivalent view of his disability. In his poem "The Fog", published in the 1913
Foliage, a blind man leads the poet through the fog, showing the reader how someone impaired in one domain may have a big advantage in another.
Poet Davies returned to Britain, to a rough life largely in London shelters and
doss-houses, including a
Salvation Army hostel in
Southwark known as "The Ark", which he grew to despise. Fearing the reaction of his fellow tramps to his writings, Davies would pretend to sleep, while composing his poems in his head, for later transcription in private. At one point, he borrowed money to print some, which he attempted to sell door-to-door. The effort was not successful and Davies burned all of the printed sheets.
Rural life in Kent On 12 October 1905 Davies met
Edward Thomas, then literary critic for the
Daily Chronicle in London, who did more to help him than anyone else. In 1907, the manuscript of
The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp drew the attention of
George Bernard Shaw, who agreed to write a preface (largely through the efforts of his wife
Charlotte). It was only through Shaw that Davies' contract with the publishers was rewritten to retain him the serial rights, all rights after three years, royalties of 15 per cent of selling price, and a non-returnable advance of £25. Davies was also to be given a say in the style of illustrations, advertisement layouts and cover designs. The original publisher,
Duckworth and Sons, rejected the new terms and the book passed to the London publisher Fifield. In 1911, he was awarded a
Civil List pension of £50, later increased to £100 and then to £150. Davies began to spend more time in London and make literary friends and acquaintances. Despite an aversion to giving his own
autograph, he began a collection of his own. The
Georgian Poetry editor
Edward Marsh helped him to obtain that of
D. H. Lawrence, which Davies was particularly keen to have, and subsequently arranged a meeting between Davies, Lawrence and Lawrence's wife-to-be
Frieda. Lawrence was initially impressed but his view changed after reading
Foliage and he later described Davies'
Nature Poems as "so thin, one can hardly feel them." In December 1908 his essay "How It Feels To Be Out of Work", described by Stonesifer as "a rather pedestrian performance", appeared in
The English Review. He continued to send other periodical articles to editors, but without success.
Social life in London After lodging at several addresses in Sevenoaks, Davies moved back to London early in 1914, settling eventually at 14
Great Russell Street in the
Bloomsbury district. He lived there from early 1916 until 1921 in a small apartment, initially accompanied by an infestation of rodents, and adjacent to rooms occupied by a loud, Belgian prostitute. In 1921, Davies moved to 13 Avery Row,
Brook Street, renting from
Quaker poet Olaf Baker. He was finding work difficult with rheumatism and other ailments. Harlow (1993) lists a total of 14
BBC broadcasts of Davies reading his work made between 1924 and 1940 (now held in the
BBC broadcast archive) though none included his most famous work, "Leisure".
Later Days, a 1925 sequel to
The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, describes the beginnings of Davies's writing career and his acquaintance with Belloc, Shaw,
de la Mare and others. He became "the most painted literary man of his day", thanks to Augustus John, Sir William Nicholson, Dame Laura Knight and Sir William Rothenstein. Epstein's bronze of Davies's head was a successful smaller work. Davies's book
Young Emma was a frank, often disturbing account of his life before and after picking Helen up at a bus-stop in the
Edgware Road near
Marble Arch. He had caught sight of her just getting off the bus and describes her wearing a "saucy-looking little velvet cap with tassels". Still unmarried, Helen was pregnant at the time. While living with Davies in London, before the couple were married, Helen suffered a miscarriage. Davies initially planned on publication of the book, and sent it to
Jonathan Cape in August 1924. He later changed his mind and asked for its return, and for the destruction of all copies. Cape in fact retained the copies and, after Davies's death, asked
George Bernard Shaw as to the advisability of publication. Shaw gave a negative reply and the work remained unpublished until after Helen's death in 1979. The couple lived quietly and happily, moving from East Grinstead to Sevenoaks, then to Malpas House,
Oxted in Surrey, and finally to a string of five residences at
Nailsworth, Gloucestershire, the first being a comfortable, detached 19th-century stone-built house. Axpills (later known as Shenstone), with a garden of character. He lived in several houses, all close to one another, in his last seven years.
Glendower From 1949, Glendower was the home of the poet's great-nephew Norman Phillips. In 2003, following a heart attack, Phillips moved into supported accommodation. A support group of local residents, The Friends of Glendower, was established to raise funds for renovation, with the aims of enabling Phillips to return to the cottage and for it to be a commemoration of Davies' life and work. In 2012 signed copies of five of Davies' books were found during restoration, together with personal papers. By 2017, remedial work on the cottage was sufficiently advanced to allow Phillips to return. ==Literary style==