| John Davie | |
| Birth Date: | 13 March 1800 |
| Birth Place: | Stirling, Scotland |
| Death Place: | Dunfermline, Scotland |
| Resting Place: | Kirkcaldy Old Kirk Churchyard, Scotland |
| Occupation: | Draper, activist |
John Davie (13 March 1800 – 4 March 1891) was a Scottish draper and activist for temperance, vegetarianism and several other causes. He was a leading figure in the Scottish temperance and vegetarianism movements.
John Davie was born at Butterflat, a small farm near Stirling, on 13 March 1800. He showed no interest in an agricultural career and was instead apprenticed to a draper in Stirling. The fifth year of his apprenticeship was spent in Dunfermline, after briefly working as a journeyman in Kircaldy and Edinburgh. There he formed a business partnership with Mr David Reid, which was prosperous enough that Davie was able to retire from business life 14 years later.[1]
Davie served as vice-president of the London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination[2] and was a member of the Anti–Corn Law League.[3] In 1830, Davie and other members of the Dunfermline Temperance Society formed the first Total Abstinence Society in Scotland.[4] He opposed alcohol, tobacco, vaccination, vivisection,[5] and capital punishment.[6] He advocated for Chartism, peace, women's suffrage,[7] and hydrotherapy.
At the age of 46, Davie became a vegetarian after reading Fruits and Farinacea and on the advice of a pro-vegetarian doctor that it would help his dyspepsia. For some time he was secretary of the Vegetarian Society and also served as vice-president.[8] Davie distributed vegetarian literature and arranged for the Society's brochures to be inserted into periodicals by booksellers. He was one of the originators of the Waverly Hydrotherapy Institution at Melrose and served as managing director. He steered the clinic to support vegetarianism.
In 1874, Davie, W. Gibson Ward, Isaac Pitman, and Francis William Newman were described as "four leading vegetarians" in England.[9] The Vegetarian Society presented an address to Davie in March 1890, to celebrate him reaching his 90th year. In September of the same year, Davie attended the 2nd International Vegetarian Congress in London.[10]
Davie died at his home, Newlands Hill House, Dunfermline, on 4 March 1891. He was buried in Kirkcaldy Old Kirk Churchyard.[11] Davie's books were left to a public library.
Davie married three times. His wife, Margaret Smith, was born in Kirkcaldy in 1799 and died on 22 February 1884. She was buried in Kirkcaldy Old Kirk Churchyard.[12] His third wife was Mary Livingston, the daughter of Archibald Livingston, a Glasgow writer, whom Davie married in September 1890. She died in 1892[13] and was also buried in Kirkcaldy Old Kirk Churchyard, along with her husband.
Davie served as a United Presbyterian elder.[14]
