In her early life, she attended meetings of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science and befriended Barbara Bodichon and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson.

She co-founded the London Schoolmistresses' Association and the Kensington Society, which pressured for universal suffrage, although she herself believed only unmarried women and widows should gain the vote.

In 2019, Baroness Hale unveiled a blue plaque jointly commemorating founders Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon, to mark the 150th anniversary of Girton College.

Davies was born on 22 April 1830 at Carlton Crescent, Southampton, England, to a teacher, Mary (née Hopkinson), and an evangelical clergyman, John D.

She also went to meetings of the feminist National Association for the Promotion of Social Science with Llewelyn, who had joined the group, and supported her friend Garrett Anderson in her medical studies.

She helped to set up the Victoria Magazine, later disassociating from it when Emily Faithfull was named in the Codrington divorce case, since she did not want to appear to be endorsing immorality.

[1] Working from October as secretary to a committee tasked with enabling women to enter university, Davies found 83 girls to sit local examinations in Cambridge in a trial run.

Later the London Suffrage Committee was formed as an offshoot and asked Parliament to grant women voting rights via a petition presented by John Stuart Mill.

With the support of Frances Buss, Dorothea Beale and Barbara Bodichon, she set up a college at Benslow House, a rented villa in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, roughly halfway between Cambridge and London.

[6] After resigning from Girton in 1904, Davies became secretary of the London branch of the National Society for Women's Suffrage and two years later led members to a discussion with Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman.

[1] She was one of the few original suffrage activists (and the only remaining member of the Langham Place Group) still alive to be able to vote in an election, after the passing of the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918.

[4][1] At the age of 91, Davies died at home in Belsize Park, Hampstead, London, on 13 July 1921 and was buried at St Marylebone Cemetery two days later, leaving an estate of £5440 17s 2d (equivalent to £257,000 in 2021).

[14] On 30 June 2019, Baroness Hale unveiled a blue plaque jointly commemorating founders Davies and Barbara Bodichon, to mark the 150th anniversary of Girton College.