Ralph Henry Carless Davis

Ralph Henry Carless Davis (7 October 1918 in Oxford – 12 March 1991 in Oxford), always known publicly as R. H. C. Davis, was a British historian and educator specialising in the European Middle Ages. He was a leading exponent of strict documentary analysis and interpretation, was keenly interested in architecture and art in history, and was successful at communicating to the public and as a teacher.

Ralph (pronounced to rhyme with 'safe') Davis was born on 7 October 1918 at 11 Fyfield Road, Oxford. He was the youngest of three sons of Henry William Carless Davis, CBE and Rosa Jennie Davis, daughter of Walter Lindup of Bampton Grange in West Oxfordshire. His father, who was Regius Professor of Modern History (Oxford) and from 1925 a fellow of the British Academy, died in 1928 when Davis was not yet 10 years old.

Earlier generations of the Davis family were involved in the Cotswold cloth industry at Stroud, Gloucestershire. The Lindup grandparents came from Worthing, Sussex, but in Davis's younger childhood owned a country house at Bampton, Oxfordshire which he and his brothers liked to visit.

Davis, like his older brothers, went to the Dragon School, and later, during World War II, contributed newsletters from Egypt and Syria to The Draconian, the school magazine.

The sudden death of his father placed financial constraints on the family, and it may have been this, or a suggestion of Gerald Haynes ('Tortoise'), a Dragon schoolmaster, which led Mrs. Davis to choose Leighton Park for Davis's secondary education. He was there from 1932 to 1937, and became involved in mediaeval architecture. Davis, as secretary of the small archaeology group and effectively its leader, organised bicycle trips round the Yorkshire abbeys in the school holidays with about six others. Davis never joined the Quakers, but he is thought to have absorbed his Christian convictions and liberal humanitarian ideals at Leighton Park. He later went served as a governor of the school for many years.

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