Alexander Edmund Batson (‘AEB’) Davie was born in the parish of St Cuthbert, Wells on 24 November 1847, the son of Dr John Chapman Davie and Anne Collard Waldron. He went to school in Wakefield, Yorkshire, and, in 1862, emigrated to Canada with his father and 3 of his brothers, settling in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. His mother (who was in poor health), a sister and another brother did not accompany them. There he pursued a legal career, becoming the first person to receive his complete legal education on the Island.
A move into politics was natural for Alexander, as his father was briefly on British Columbia’s early colonial Legislative Council, and he himself was law clerk to BC’s Legislative Assembly between 1872-4, just after it joined Canada as a province. He was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1875, winning a seat in the mining area of Cariboo, and offered the post of provincial secretary in May 1877, by the Premier, Andrew Elliott. However he surprisingly lost the resulting by-election, and withdrew from BC politics for a time, returning to his law practice. He won a seat at Lillooet at the 1882 elections, and in early 1883 joined the provincial government of William Smithe as Attorney General. This time he had no problems winning the resulting by-election, being returned unopposed. He was active in law reform and in handling the sensitive boundary between provincial and federal rights during this early period of Canadian constitutional development.
When Smithe died in office at the end of March 1887, AEB was asked to form a new BC provincial government, which he did on 1 April, retaining also the post of Attorney General as well as Premier. Despite great initial hopes for his ministry, he was within months forced to take an extended break on health grounds, and he went to the USA to recuperate. His government continued in his absence, and survived through the fortunate conjunction of a large parliamentary majority and relatively tranquil times. Although he attempted to return to front-line politics in periods when his health improved, it became clear that his premiership would soon end. A local newspaper wrote that “When the house separated at the end of the session, every member felt they were parting with their first minister for the last time.” He was offered but refused in July 1889 the chance to become a Canadian Supreme Court justice. On 1 August, he died of tuberculosis.
AEB’s younger brother, Theodore, despite not having the advantage of being born in Somerset, but in London, in 1852, followed a remarkably similar career path. He emigrated to Canada in 1867, 5 years after the rest of the family, to join them. Like Alexander, he studied law under Robert Bishop in Victoria. After years of a successful legal practice, he entered the BC Legislative Assembly in 1882, and supported his brother’s brief premiership between 1887-9. He was Attorney General in the cabinet of John Robson, who had succeeded AEB as Premier, and himself became BC’s Premier in July 1892 on Robson’s death. Being BC Premier seems to have been bad for your health in those days – Robson died of blood poisoning caused by catching a finger in the door of a hansom cab! Theodore resigned in early 1895 to become BC’s Chief Justice, and died three years later in 1898.
Another brother, John Chapman, also born in Wells, not only had his father’s name but also followed him into the medical profession, where he was well-known and much respected in BC. He was known as “Shot Gun” Davie because he took his gun along to shoot pheasant when visiting patients in the country!
AEB Davie is commemorated in BC by Davie Street in Vancouver, which since the 1970s has been a centre of the local gay community, and known as ‘Davie Village’. Sadly, the Davie family do not seem to be officially remembered in their home town of Wells.
© JB Seatrobe (Barry K Winetrobe & Janet Seaton) 2018. A version of this article was published originally in the Sept 2017 issue of the Somerset Leveller, #29.