Sneyd Davies was an English poet, academic and churchman, archdeacon of Derby from 1755.
Background
He was born on 30 October 1709. His father, John Davies, was rector of Kingsland, Herefordshire, and prebendary of Hereford and Saint Asaph. His mother, Honora, was daughter of Ralph Sneyd, and married, first, William Ravenscroft in 1690, who died in 1698, and secondly, John Davies, by whom she had four children, Sneyd being the second son.
Career
He was on the foundation at Eton College, and later became scholar and fellow of King"s College, Cambridge. Davies wrote poems at school, and was noted for scholarship. His father died in 1732, and left him the advowson of Kingsland.
Here he settled, and led the life of a recluse, keeping up occasional correspondence with Pratt, Cornwallis, and other college friends.
His particular crony was Timothy Thomas, rector of Presteigne, in his neighbourhood, who joined him in translating the Essay on Manitoba into Latin verse. He died, aged 59, in 1751.
Cornwallis, on becoming bishop of Lichfield in 1749, appointed Davies to a chaplaincy, and later appointed him master of Saint John"s Hospital in 1751, prebendary of Lichfield, and in 1755 archdeacon of Derby. Davies became known in the literary circles of Lichfield.
Anna Seward, then a girl, thought him a spirit "beatified before his time".
Davies was interested in further preferment, but when Pratt as Lord Camden eventually offered him a small living in the neighbourhood of Kingsland in 1768, Davies"s health was breaking, and he died on 20 January 1769.