(1837-1909) Poet and playwright, born at Barrhead, Renfrewshire, son of a Dissenting minister, entered the chemical department of a sugar refinery in Greenock in his 13th year, returning after one year to school as a pupil teacher. He was afterwards engaged in teaching at various places, and having taken to literature went in 1890 to London. He achieved a reputation as a writer of poems and plays of marked individuality and vivid realism. His poems include In a Music Hall (1891), Fleet Street Eclogues (1893), Baptist Lake (1894), New Ballads (1896), The Last Ballad (1898), The Triumph of Mammon (1907), and among his plays are Bruce (1886), Smith: a Tragic Farce (1888), Godfrida (1898). Davidson disappeared on March 27, 1909, under circumstances which left little doubt that under the influence of mental depression he had committed suicide. Among his papers was found the manuscript of a new work, Fleet Street Poems, with a letter containing the words, "This will be my last book." His body was discovered a few months later.