Born on 11 February 1910 at The Oaks, Great Malvern, Worcestershire, second son of William John Davis, fish and fruit merchant, and Florence Kate Rachel Evans, his wife. Davis was educated at Aymestry Court School, Crown East, Worcester and at Bishop's Stortford College, where he won an entrance scholarship in 1923, became captain of the cricket XI and head of his house, and won the classics prize. He entered King's College Hospital with the Sambrooke scholarship in 1928 and in 1931 won the Raymond Gooch scholarship. He was awarded the surgical prize in 1934 and later held various appointments at the hospital. He devised a method of retaining an indwelling catheter in the urethra with four pipe-cleaners. In February 1937 he was appointed Government Medical Officer in the Public Health Service at Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia. The following December he had a serious riding accident, but after several months' leave in England returned to his post in November 1938. In 1940 he was appointed medical superintendent of the Leper Settlement at Mtoko, Southern Rhodesia; he had also a wide surgical practice among Africans and Europeans. He was much interested in the study of obscure tropical diseases. Davis married in January 1940 Heather Derry of Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, who survived him but without children. He died at Salisbury after a short attack of malaria on 29 January 1942, aged 31. He had contracted malaria earlier and his spleen was removed a year before his death, but the disease lingered and he died suddenly in a malarial coma. He was a keen sportsman, and a man of courage and spirit. He had shown himself to be a gifted amateur actor and musician. Publication:- A method of tying-in a catheter. *Lancet*, 1936, 1, 255. Davis's method is described and illustrated by Pye's *Surgical handicraft*, 11th edition by Hamilton Bailey, 1939, p 128.