David Davis (Entrepreneur)

David Davis Jr. (* 1821 ; † November 12, 1884 in Ferndale ) was a Welsh entrepreneur.

Davis was the eldest son of mining pioneer David Davis and his wife Mary Lewis. His father was originally a grocer, and as he became a mining entrepreneur in the 1840s, he bought a shop for his eldest son in Trecynon, near Aberdare . When his father expanded his business activities in the South Welsh Valleys in the 1850s, Davis sold his business and helped his father run his coal mines while his younger brother Lewis took over the sale of the coal in Cardiff .

In early 1866, his father handed over the business to him and his three brothers, which included coal mines in Aberdare and Ferndale . The brothers initially continued the business together as Davis and Sons . David's brother William retired from the company in 1867, and when his brother Frederick died in 1876, David and Lewis continued to run the business. Although there were two major mining accidents in the Ferndale Colliery in 1867 and 1869 , he and his brothers were considered good employers. During the miners' strikes in 1871 and 1875, he renounced lockouts and was then second chairman of the arbitration committee that settled the labor dispute of 1875. In addition to his mines, he acquired interests in slate quarries in Merioneth , northwest Wales , where he established Arthog Hall as his residence. In order to break the monopoly of the Marquess of Bute , who controlled coal exports through the port of Cardiff and the Taff Vale Railway , he participated with his brother and with David Davies in the construction of the port of Barry and on the Barry Railway .

David, on the other hand, was more involved in politics and society than his father. In 1868 he moved Henry Richard to as MP for Merthyr Tydfil to run. When Richard Fothergill no longer ran in the general election in 1880, Davis was under discussion as a candidate for the Liberal Party . In 1879 he served as sheriff for Merionethshire, to he was justice of the peace of Merionethshire and Glamorgan . In addition, he generously supported the University College Wales in Aberystwyth , founded in 1872 , the South Wales College in Cardiff and the Wesleyan Reform Connexion, which was briefly split off from the Wesleysian Church . In 1884 he fell ill and died at his brother Lewis' house in Ferndale. He was buried in Aberdare.

Davis was married and had two daughters:

• Mary Davis († 1871) ∞ Henry Thomas Edwards (1837-1884)
• Catherine ∞ Sir Francis Edwards, 1st Baronet (1852–1927)

Web links

• Watkin William Price: Davis, David, Jun. In: Dictionary of Welsh Biography, online
• Obituary dated November 15, 1884 in the Aberdare Times ( online )