McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Davies, Benjamin, 1814-1875
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1814-1875
History
Benjamin Davies was born in 1814, near St. Clears, Carmarthenshire, Wales.
He was a Welsh Hebraist. In 1830, he entered Bristol Baptist College, England. He subsequently studied in Dublin, Glasgow, and Leipzig where he obtained a Ph.D. degree in 1838, and developed friendships with several eminent German Hebraists. The same year he returned to London where he was ordained, before taking up the post of Principle of Montreal Training College for North American Missionaries (1838–1844). He trained missionaries under the auspices of the Canada Missionary Society. In 1844, he was appointed President and theological tutor of Stepney Baptist College, London, where he stayed until becoming Professor of Semitics at McGill College, Montreal in 1847. He returned to London in 1857, where he taught oriental and classical languages at the then Regent's Park Baptist College till 1875. His favourite study was Hebrew, and he published translations of Gesenius's “Student's Hebrew Grammar” and “Student's Lexicon of the Hebrew Language”, and an annotated edition of E. Robinson's “Harmony of the Gospels”. He was a member of the company for revising the translation of the Old Testament. He received an honorary LL.D. degree from Trinity College in Dublin.
In 1839, he married Eliza Try. He died on July 19, 1875, in Frome, Somerset, England.