He was educated at the village school, under James Darragh, and then in Ballymena till 1824; and then became a student at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution, destined for the presbyterian ministry.

[1] Becoming a Congregationalist, Davidson accepted in 1842 the chair of biblical criticism, literature and oriental languages at the Lancashire Independent College, in Manchester.

A result of this trip was the translation of two volumes of Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler's Compendium of Ecclesiastical History (Edinburgh, 1846-7).

[2] The work began with an approach by Messrs. Longman, in 1854, for help with a reissue of Thomas Hartwell Horne's well-known Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures.

[1] At the November meeting of the Lancashire College committee it was stated that alarm had been taken in many quarters at the views expressed by Davidson in the new Introduction.

Rogers was on the College's committee, and is thought to have followed the lead of the conservative Thomas Raffles on Davidson's reprimand and removal.

[6] Alexander Gordon writing in the Dictionary of National Biography stated that "Nothing contributed more to the expulsion of Davidson from his chair in the Lancashire Independent College than [the pamphlet].

"[7] On the other side appeared Dr. Davidson's Removal from the Professorship of Biblical Literature in the Lancashire Independent College, Manchester, on account of alleged Error in Doctrine, London, 1860, by Thomas Nicholas.

The confusion is based on his sharing a surname with Andrew Bruce Davidson, D. D., Professor of Hebrew, Free Church College, Edinburgh, of that committee.

[8] Among his principal works are: Also translations of the New Testament from Tischendorf's text, Gieseler's Ecclesiastical History (1846), and Fürst's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon.