Ivy Davison

Ivy Davison (14 June 1892 – 15 November 1977) was a British journalist and editor. Her friend, Vita Sackville-West, described her as "a young woman of some enterprise and independence... having shaken herself free of ready-made traditions, to the dismay of her parents, in order to earn her own living".

Early life Ivy Lilian Margaret Davison was born on 14 June 1892 near Sevenoaks, Kent. In 1930, she moved to the new Week-End Review, also as assistant editor, until it was absorbed by the New Statesman in 1933.

Davison's literary journalism was frequently unsigned. By October 1939, the magazine had reached a circulation of 50,000, but the outbreak of World War II saw this cut in half. She maintained an association with The Geographical Magazine, retaining responsibility for the "World in Books" section into the mid-1960s.

Later life and death Ivy Davison retired to North Mundham, near Chichester. There, she completed work on a book: At the Country Villas. The story of life in country houses around London during the eighteenth century, she was unable to find a publisher.

Davison died from heart failure on 15 November 1977. She left a collection of 1100 books, along with her own unpublished manuscript, to the British Federation of University Women's Sybil Campbell Library.