Tour Scotland photograph of the John Boyd Wilson Memorial stained glass window in the Cathedral in Dunblane, Scotland. Above the South-West doorway in the South Aisle is a two-lighted window in memory of Colonel J Boyd Wilson. The figures represent St George and Hope, and the artist was Louis Davis, London, England. Louis Davis was born May 1860 and raised in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, on East St Helen Street. He was the son of Marianne and Gabriel Davis. His mother, also known as Mary Ann, was from Ewelme, Oxfordshire. His father was a manufacturer, with an interest in the Davis Engineering and Launch Building Company, which built and refurbished boats, barges and canals. Gabriel Davis was also a grain, alcohol and coal merchant. Louis Davis had two older brothers, Arthur and David, and a younger brother named Oliver. Davis married the much younger Edith Jane Webster in 1901 in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. Due to the similarity between the faces of women in his works and that of a picture of Edith, it is probable that she was his model for much of his glass work. The couple never had children, but Edith's sister, Ethel, lived with the couple and was a companion and housekeeper for a period of time. Edith and Louis were both injured due to an accidental gas fire and the resulting fumes in 1915. Davis seemed to have suffered a stroke, lost his ability to speak, and occasionally required a wheelchair for mobility. Edith fully recovered from the incident. Davis died in 1941 after which Edith sold their home and studio and returned to East Anglia where she was raised.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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