Davey and his partner Gerald Haskins formed GHD Group and worked on the Morning Star dam in Tasmania and in New South Wales before amalgamating with A. Gordon Gutteridge in 1939 and receiving Commonwealth contracts during World War II. In 1946 he contested the Australian House of Representatives, running unsuccessfully for the Liberal Party in Hume. One of the founders of the Association of Consulting Engineers, he was its president from 1956 to 1957 and a councillor of the Institution of Engineers in 1962 and 1964–65. In 1966 he was appointed CBE.
