He and his eldest brother George were the boys closest to Barrie, and he is widely reported as the individual who most influenced the portrayal of Peter Pan in the 1911 novel based on the play.

The following winter, he was ill for several months, so in February 1906, Barrie and producer Charles Frohman brought scenery and some of the cast to the family's home in Berkhamsted to perform the play for him.

[1] The statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, erected in secret during the night of 30 April 1912, was meant to be modelled upon photographs of Michael Llewelyn Davies at the age of six, dressed as the character.

Davies attended Eton College, where he had difficulty adjusting to life away from his family, and he exchanged letters daily with "Uncle Jim" Barrie.

Nonetheless, he made a number of friends and excelled at his studies, including art and writing poetry, and was generally described as a "brilliant boy", one destined for great things.

Although Boothby criticised the relationship between Davies and his surrogate father Barrie as "morbid" and "unhealthy", he dismissed the notion that there was a sexual aspect to it.

The closeness of Davies and Buxton, combined with the uncertain circumstances of their deaths, led to speculation that the pair had died in a suicide pact.

Dangerous currents in Sandford Lasher had made the pool notorious as a drowning hazard – there were warning signs and a conspicuous 19th century memorial to previous victims.

A witness at the coroner's inquest reported that one man was swimming to join the other, who was sitting on a stone on the weir, but he experienced "difficulties" and the other dived in to reach him.

[1][5] The Oxford Magazine published the following in an obituary for the pair: Two House men whose loss would have been more widely and more deeply mourned, it would be impossible to find.

The 1988 play The Death of Peter Pan (by Australian playwright Barry Lowe) is based on Davies's life and focuses on his relationship with Rupert Buxton.