Editing J. C. C. Davidson (section)

==Civil service career, 1910–1920==
After leaving Cambridge in 1910, Davidson joined the Colonial Office, where he became unpaid private secretary to [[Robert Crewe-Milnes, 1st Marquess of Crewe|Lord Crewe]], the [[Secretary of State for the Colonies]]. He continued in this post when [[Lewis Harcourt]] succeeded Crewe as Colonial secretary at the end of 1910. Davidson was anxious to serve in the [[First World War]], but Harcourt considered him so valuable that he managed to convince him to stay at the Colonial Office. In 1915 [[Bonar Law]] replaced Harcourt as head of the Colonial Office, and was urged to retain Davidson as private secretary. They became close friends and Law came to rely as heavily on Davidson as Harcourt had done.<ref name="dnb"/>

In December 1916 Bonar Law was appointed [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] and [[Leader of the House of Commons]] and insisted on taking Davidson with him as private secretary. Davidson managed to persuade Bonar Law to employ [[Stanley Baldwin]] as his [[Parliamentary Private Secretary]], a move that would have far-reaching consequences for Davidson himself and for the nation's history. Baldwin had up until then been an obscure back-bench MP, but his appointment as PPS to Bonar Law was his first move on the ladder of promotion. Davidson and Baldwin developed a close friendship which lasted until Baldwin's death in 1947. In 1918 he was responsible for the final draft of the "[[Coalition Coupon|coupon]]" endorsing parliamentary candidates in the [[1918 United Kingdom general election|general election]] as representatives of the coalition government. In 1919 he was appointed a Companion of the [[Order of the Bath]] (CB).<ref name="dnb"/>