John Francis Davis (J.F.D. Malcolm)

Born 1860
Died 3 May 1930

Active: 1880 - 1930

Country of birth and death: Ireland

Sculptor, stone and marble carver

Born in Knockbodly, Graiguenamanagh, Kilkenny and baptised on 24 November 1860. He was the only child of John Davis, a stonecutter who moved to Cork (probably in the 1860s) and established a stone yard in Gillabbey Street. It was here that the young John Francis (known first by his initials J.F. and later as J.F.D.) learned his trade.

In 1881 he married Mary Keating and they lived at 4 Sunview Terrace, Cork where he also had a studio. J.F. Davis together with his father, John, and later his sons Edward (Ted) and John Frank, who also became marble carvers, ran family businesses from stone yards in Sunview Terrace, College Road, and Gillabbey Street.

J.F. Davis became an accomplished sculptor and gained recognition at the Cork Industrial Exhibition in 1883 with a seven foot high statue of St Joseph and the Christ child in Portland stone (now in Dublin), and two other works. A report of the works in his studio during 1886 includes busts of Charles Stewart Parnell and the Rt. Hon. T.D. O’Sullivan, as well as 'two street scenes in relief'. [See note below *]

Many of J.F. Davis's commissions were ecclesiastical and he carried out commissions at: the Church of St Mary’s, Buttevant, Co Cork (1886-7); Blarney Church, Co Cork (1894); Sacred Heart Church, Glounthaune, Cork (1898); numerous embellishments for the interior and exterior of the Church of the Immaculate Conception (originally called St Finbarr’s East and also called The Lough Church, Cork) (1890); and the High Altar for Clonard Church, Belfast (1910-11).

J.F. Davis also made a number of statues, monuments and funerary works, amongst these were: a monument to Father Owen O’Keefe (1899); St Joseph’s Cemetery Cork (undated); The Maid of Erin, Skibbereen (1904); The Pikeman, Clonakilty (1905); and Four Statues and the Maid of Erin on the National Monument Cork (1906).

In about 1914 J.F. Davis left his thriving businesses with his sons Edward and John F. Davis as well as the family in Cork and moved to 53, Lisburn Avenue Belfast where he lived and established a new studio. From this date he worked under the name of Mr J.F.D. Malcolm and was quickly given a number of important commissions from (amongst others) Purdy & Millard, J. & R. Thompson, Joseph McAuley and James Jamison and Son Ltd.

The documentation relating to these commissions is incomplete, but amongst his known works were (for Purdy & Millard) war memorials outside Mourne Presbyterian Church, Kilkeel, Newry and Mourne (1923) and another in Moy (1924); and for Joseph McAuley (of Messrs O’Neill & Co.) two life size statues of 'The Sacred Heart' and 'Our Lady of Lourdes' (both 1921), and memorials in Belfast City Cemetery and Milltown Cemetery (both marked O’Neill & Co.).

J.F.D. Malcolm (J.F. Davis) and his work are discussed by Kenneth Jamison in 'Masons and Carvers' (Ulster Folklife, 2002, vol. 48, p.p. 1-13) and a contemporary from Cork, Seamus Murphy lists Davis (under the name John) as a figure carver as well as his son Ned ('Stone Mad', p. 229).

John Francis Davis/J.F.D. Malcolm died in Belfast and was buried at his request in an unmarked grave. The Davis Family in Cork and the Malcolm Family in Belfast both mourned his death.

Patsy Long contributed information and text for this biographical entry. Additional research was undertaken by Dr. Emma McVeigh on behalf of the Mapping Sculpture project.

Note: The description of the sculptures exhibited at the Cork Industrial Exhibition in 1883 and the works seen in Davis's studio in 1886 is based on an article in the Cork Examiner, 26th June 1886, p. 2, col. 6 and research undertaken by the Crawford Art Gallery. See the section for 1886 online at:
http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie/1876-1900.html (accessed 17 November 2014)

Citing this record

'John Francis Davis (J.F.D. Malcolm)', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib3_1257868544, accessed 29 May 2023]