[2] David was born in Lancaster, England,[citation needed] daughter of Major John Almond Hacking and Davida Elizabeth, née Nesbitt.

[3] Her first major television role was as Elinor Dashwood in the BBC's 1971 dramatisation of Sense and Sensibility followed a year later by War and Peace, in which she played Sonya.

David also appeared in the TV series The Last of the Mohicans (BBC), and in two episodes of Colditz, ("Missing, Presumed Dead" and "Odd Man In", 1972) as Cathy Carter, the wife of Flt.

The following year, she played the heroine of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, opposite Jeremy Brett in the BBC miniseries of the same name.

In 2005, she appeared in two episodes of Bleak House, playing Mrs. Bayham Badger, alongside Gillian Anderson, Charles Dance, Alun Armstrong and Warren Clarke.

She gradually moved on to more mature parts and appeared as Mrs. Gardiner in the acclaimed 1995 BBC TV series of Pride and Prejudice, in which her daughter Emilia Fox had her first major television role as Georgiana Darcy.

Her film appearances have included roles in The Smashing Bird I Used to Know (1969), the horror short Sleepwalker (1984), Comrades (1986), Secret Friends (1991), Rogue Trader (1999), Cotton Mary (1999), The Soul Keeper (2002, as the mother of her real-life daughter Emilia) and These Foolish Things (2006).