John Henry Davies

Who was John Henry Davies?

John Henry Davies was a wealthy brewery owner who in 1902 took over the English football club Manchester United, which was then called Newton Heath. The club was struggling with a debt of £2,670 at the time.

Census returns for 1871, 1881 show Davies was born in Tutbury, Staffordshire He did not come from a wealthy family and initially worked as an estate agent and innkeeper. He first moved into the brewing business in the late 1890s as a director of John Henry Lees brewery in Moss Side. By the beginning of the next century, he was chairman of the Walker and Homfray Brewery, and in 1904 he also became chairman of the Manchester Brewery Company, which owned many public houses in Manchester and Salford. Walker and Homfray took control of the Manchester Brewery and several other companies in 1912. Davies also gained control of Stockport-based Daniel Clifton & Company, which owned around 50 pubs and off-licences. In 1920, he founded the Moss Side Brewery Company and the Palatine Bottling Company.

Before his involvement in football, he had become independently rich and had also married into another wealthy family. His wife Amy was the niece and ward of sugar merchant Sir Henry Tate.