A DANDY FELLOW

See Also: GAMBLING Gamblers

Scrope Berdmore Davies was born one of the younger sons of a Gloucestershire clergyman. The child proved to be clever. He won a scholarship to Eton College. Attending the school furnished the youth with opportunities that he would not have had had he not been educated there. He gained access to London society. He also learnt how to drink deeply, to gamble intensely, and to spend money freely.

Eton and King's College Cambridge had been founded by King Henry VI in 1440 and 1441 respectively. The two institutions had a close relationship with one another. There was a well-developed path by which many Etonians were admitted to the college. Davies, in view of his family's modest material means, opted to take it.

The youth became part of a group of freethinking, progressively-inclined students. Its members were engaged by literature and politics. Within the circle, he and the 6^th Baron Byron became close friends. The peer built up large debts with Cambridge's tradesmen. In 1808 the size of these made it impossible for him to continue his studies at the university. His credit was still good in London, therefore, he moved there. Davies accompanied him. The pair soon became well-known as dandies.

Davies owned very little in the way of resources beyond his intellect. He was careful to maintain his long-term material interests by accepting a Fellowship at King's. However, in the short-term, he applied his intelligence to earning a living at the gaming tables of the West End. He developed, employed, and refined a series of gambling strategies. The following year he was in the financial position to be able to act as the guarantor for a 5000 loan to Byron. The sum paid for a grand tour of Europe that the peer embarked upon.

For the next decade Davies's life followed a regular annual pattern. He would spend August at one of the fashionable spa towns. During the autumn he would reside in Cambridge in order to fulfil the commitments that were required of him to maintain his college fellowship. This was not an exile from the gambling fraternity since much of the time he was able to attend horseraces at Newmarket, which lay a few miles to the town's east. With his academic obligations met, the dandy was then at liberty to spend the rest of his year in London.

Ultimately, Davies proved to be unable to sustain his success as a gambler. As the 1810s closed, his outgoings began to exceed his income. His finances imploded and he was left with large debts. He fled to the continent. He was to spend the rest of his life there. However, he was careful not to marry. Had he done so, he would have had to surrender his fellowship and the modest stipend that it still furnished him with.¹

Location: Barclay's Bank, Kinnard House, 1-2 Pall Mall East, SW1Y 5AU. Where Davies's paper were discovered. (blue, purple)

Website: www.etoncollege.com www.kings.cam.ac.uk

¹. In 1976 Davies's life was illuminated in new detail. His papers were discovered in the vaults of a Pall Mall East building that belonged to Barclay's Bank. He had left them with one of the institution's predecessors before fleeing to the continent.

: David Backhouse 2024