James William Davison

The son of James Davison, of a Northumberland family, and the actress Maria Duncan, he was born in London 5 October 1813.

He was educated at University College School and the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied the pianoforte under W. H. Holmes and composition under George Alexander Macfarren.

[3] Davison's tastes were conservative and he was a strong advocate of the work of Felix Mendelssohn, Louis Spohr and William Sterndale Bennett, the latter of whom he had befriended at the Royal Academy.

[4] Conversely Davison was strongly against the innovations of the composers of the New German School, including Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner, and even towards more conventional composers such as Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann, although he was an advocate of the work (and conducting) of Hector Berlioz,[3][5] whom he described as "a great musical thinker"[6] and who dedicated to him his overture Le Corsaire (op.

He also wrote and arranged pianoforte music for Bohn's Harmonist, and composed songs, among them settings of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley.