Educated partly in the University of Edinburgh and partly in France, Italy and Switzerland, and early acquiring an interest in natural history, he benefited greatly by acquaintance with foreign languages and literature, and with men of science in different countries.

[1] He was induced in 1837, through the influence of Leopold von Buch, to devote his special attention to the brachiopoda, and in course of time he became the highest authority on this group.

The great task of his life was the Monograph of British Fossil Brachiopoda, published by the Palaeontographical Society (1850–1886).

This work, with supplements, comprises six quarto volumes with more than 200 plates drawn on stone by the author.

Her family took their holidays there each year and they would devote their time to gathering cleaning and labelling fossils.

[5] Davidson died at Brighton on 14 October 1885, bequeathing his fine collection of recent and fossil brachiopoda to the British Museum.

)[7] This was published in multiple parts in the series Monographs of the Palaeontographical Society in Volumes IV to XXXIX, not always in sequence.