Nathaniel Davison

He was the fourth son of George Davison of Little Mill, Longhoughton, Northumberland;{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/sixnorthcountrydiaries11surtuoft#page/288/mode/2up|title=Six North Country Diaries |editor-last=Hodgson |editor-first=John Crawford |year=1910|via=Internet Archive|publisher=Surtees Society|volume=cxviii|page=288|accessdate=2015-04-22}} his sister Jane was mother of John Yelloly the physician.{{cite ODNB|id=30211|title=Yelloly, John|first=N. G.|last=Coley}}{{cite book|first=Robert|last=Walpole|author-link=Robert Walpole (classical scholar)|title=Memoirs Relating to European and Asiatic Turkey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7BlRAAAAcAAJ&pg=PR20|year=1817|page=xx}} He was British consul at Nice, where he had consular privileges from September 1769, and then from 1778 in Algiers, leaving in 1783.{{cite web|url=http://www.basesdocumentaires-cg06.fr/os-cgi/cgixpd.exe?exec=DOCUMENT&mode=0&start=20&num=23&fnmq=arca/query-q.html&fnmr=arca/page-r.html&fnmd=arca/page-f.html&q_ft_any_text_column=Castellar|title=Sénat de Nice, Document 01B 0186 du 15/04/1768 au 05/01/1781|accessdate=2015-04-23|language=fr}}{{cite book|title=The Edinburgh Annual Register for 1809|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O2IJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA325|year=1811|page=325}}{{cite book|title=The Edinburgh Magazine, and Literary Miscellany: A New Series of the Scots Magazine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=90Y2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA112|year=1778|publisher=s.n.|page=112}}[http://levantineheritage.com/pdf/List_of_British_Consular_Officials_Turkey%281581-1860%29-D_Wilson.pdf David Wilson, Consular Officials in the Ottoman Empire (PDF)] at p. 48 He had been hoping for Naples, asking Thomas Percy for the influence of the Duke of Northumberland in support.{{cite book|title=Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century by John Nichols|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JXettTn8UXoC&pg=PA182|year=1858|publisher=J. B. Nichols|pages=182–3}} He received a government pension in 1786.{{cite book|title=The Parliamentary Register|volume=XV|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8SgIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA777|year=1801|page=777}}

Davison rented a house in Twickenham, where his son Nicholas Francis was born, from the merchant Daniel Twining, father of Thomas Twining.{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/travelsinindiahu00twin#page/80/mode/2up |title=Travels in India a Hundred Years Ago, with a Visit to the United States |editor-last=Twining |editor-first=William H. G. |first=Thomas |last=Twining |year=1893|via=Internet Archive|publisher=James R. Osgood, McIlvaine & Co.|page=80|accessdate=2015-04-23}}{{cite web|url=http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/1192|title=Munks Roll Details for Nicholas Francis Davison|accessdate=2015-04-23}} He died in Alnwick on 23 February 1809, aged 72 or 73, and was buried at Longhoughton. Sir Henry Taylor, brought up in County Durham where his father was a friend of Davison, recollected that he wore a pigtail (queue), one of the last men of his generation to do so. He sold the home farm Little Mill to Lord Grey.{{cite book|first=John|last=Aikin|title=The Athenaeum: A Magazine of Literary and Miscellaneous Information|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6uARAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA365|year=1809|publisher=Longmans, Hurst, Rees, and Orme|page=365}}{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/historyofnorthum02nort#page/410/mode/2up |title=A History of Northumberland |last=Bateson |first=Edward |year=1893 |via=Internet Archive|pages=410–2|volume=II|accessdate=2015-04-22}}

File:Great Pyramid Diagram.jpg in the Great Pyramid]]

In 1763 Davison travelled to Egypt with Wortley Montagu, whom he knew through the London bookseller Thomas Becket.{{cite book|first=Jonathan|last=Curling|title=Edward Wortley Montague, 1713–1776: The Man in the Iron Wig|year=1954|publisher=A. Melrose|page=179}} Acting as Montagu's secretary, he documented their journeys for the Royal Society.{{cite ODNB|id=19013|title=Montagu, Edward Wortley |first=Isobel |last=Grundy}}

Montagu and Davison set off from Livorno in April 1763, for Alexandria. Montague spent time in Rosetta in the spring of 1764.Fatma Moussa-Mahmoud, 'A Manuscript Translation of the "Arabian Nights" in the Beckford Papers', Journal of Arabic Literature Vol. 7, (1976), pp. 7–23, at p. 11. Published by: Brill. {{JSTOR|4182959}} Davison himself spent 18 months at Alexandria, and then the same length of time at Cairo, and visited the pyramids.{{cite book|first=John|last=Taylor|author-link=John Taylor (English publisher)|title=The Great Pyramid|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lq8ZBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA10|date=21 August 2014|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-108-07578-7|page=10}}

It was in 1765 that, in the Great Pyramid, Davison followed up an echo he heard in the Grand Gallery. Through a passage deep with bat dung, he found, after a crawl of 24 feet, a space above the King's Chamber.{{cite book|first=Charles|last=Rigano|title=Pyramids of the Giza Plateau|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4arwBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA60|date=19 December 2014|publisher=Author House|isbn=978-1-4969-5249-3|page=60}} He later conjectured about the architectural role of the chamber he discovered, in a letter to Joseph White of 1779, coming to conclusions comparable with those later published by Richard William Howard Vyse.

An engraving after a drawing by Davison of the interior of the Great Pyramid appeared in volume 2 (1807) Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt by Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt.{{Cite web|url=http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/sonninidemanoncourt1807bd2/0369?sid=72160c8e96dd88a92c8b62eb8051948a|title=Sonnini de Manoncourt, Charles Nicolas Sigisbert: Travels in upper and lower Egypt (Band 2) (London, 1807)}} It was published via the intervention of Louis Joseph d'Albert d'Ailly, the Duc de Chaulnes; but Davison claimed the Duc had come by this and other drawings of his by underhand means.

Extracts from Davison's journals were published in 1817 by Robert Walpole, in his collection Memoirs Relating to European and Asiatic Turkey. They included descriptions of the chamber, and the vertical shaft in the Great Pyramid; and catacombs in Alexandria.{{cite book|first=Robert|last=Walpole|title=Memoirs Relating to European and Asiatic Turkey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7BlRAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA345|year=1817|pages=345–382|volume=1}}{{cite journal|title=Observations relating to some of the Antiquities of Egypt, from the Papers of the late Mr. Davison. Published in Walpole's Memoirs|journal=The Quarterly Review|date=December 1818|volume=19|pages=391–424|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044089882542;view=1up;seq=401}}

Davison married Margaret Thornton on 9 July 1787, in London. Their son Nicholas Francis became a physician.{{acad|id=DVY813NF|name=Davison, Nicholas Francis}} Their third daughter Margaret married Edward John Howman in 1822.{{acad|id=HWMN814EJ|name=Howman, Edward John}}{{cite book|title=The Christian remembrancer; or, The Churchman's Biblical, ecclesiastical & literary miscellany |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i_EDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA317|year=1822|publisher=F. C. & J. Rivington|pages=317–}} The fourth daughter, Eleanor, married Adam Atkinson of Lorbottle.{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/countyfamiliesof06walf#page/34/mode/2up|title=The County Families of the United Kingdom; or, Royal manual of the titled and untitled aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland |last=Walford|first=Edward|year=1871|via=Internet Archive|location=London|publisher=Robert Hardwicke|page=34|accessdate=2015-04-22}}{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/genealogicalhera01byuburk#page/48/mode/2up |title=A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland |last=Burke|first=Bernard|year=1879|via=Internet Archive|location=London |publisher=Harrison, Pall Mall|page=49|volume=I|edition=6th|accessdate=2015-04-22}}

Davison also helped to bring up his nephew John Yelloly, after his father died.{{cite book|first=Julie|last=Myerson|title=The Lost Child|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gVzEJ_rz0eEC&pg=PA20|date=5 January 2012|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=978-1-4088-3024-6|page=20}}

{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Davison, Nathaniel}}

Category:1730s births

Category:1809 deaths

Category:18th-century British archaeologists

Category:English travel writers

Category:British diplomats

Category:Great Pyramid of Giza