Davies (or Davis), Samuel, Chester, u, cm and auctioneer (b. c. 1770–d. 1829). Trading in Eastgate St, 1797–1805; Foregate St, 1812–30; and no. 132 in 1828; in partnership with Cliffe in 1822. Admitted freeman on 23 January 1798. From 1796–98 Davies supplied furniture to John Leicester of Tabley Hall, Cheshire, totalling £170, including, in 1796, ‘2 Neat Painted Flower-stands’; and on 23 January 1798 ‘12 Handsome Mahog. Chairs Carv'd Reeded Pillars and feet, red morroco & brass-nailed’, £33 12s; two sets of ten ‘Neat Painted’ chairs, four large painted elbow chairs, and several screens. Davies's bill of 1 June to 3 October 1798 lists nine sofas and two long wondow stools upholstered in ‘fine canvas and Best Hair with squab seats’, totalling £70 3s 6d. Took out a Sun Insurance policy on 16 January 1802 for £900, of which stock and utensils in St Werburgh's Churchyard, Old Yorkshire Hall, accounted for £100. Announced in Chester Courant, 2 June 1815, ‘his willingness to accept customers following the death of Joseph Powell’, u of Chester. Named in Chester Chronicle and North Wales Advertiser, 1 May 1829, as subscriber of 5s to a gold cup for the Chester Races of 1829. Death, aged 59, reported in the same paper, 31 July 1829, when described as ‘universally esteemed by all who knew him as an upright, honest man’. On 28 August 1829 his widow announced her husband's chosen successor to be James Whittingham. On 16 March 1830 the sale of Davies's stock was advertised, consisting of ‘mahogany dining room and parlour chairs, two sofas, several sets of imitation rosewood and black chairs, chimney, peir and dressing glasses, Kidderminster and Venetian carpeting, chests of drawers, mahogany celleret, lounging chairs, tea chests …’ [D; Chester freemen rolls; GL, Sun MS vol. 43, ref. 728048; Chester RO, Leicester papers]