John Leonard Davies was born on September 5, 1908, in Salford, Manchester, England, and grew up in Cresco, Iowa. He received his B.A. in education at Upper Iowa University, in Fayette, Iowa, in 1929. He received his M.A. in 1943 and Ph.D. in 1949, both in education at the State University of Iowa. During World War II, Davies served as an officer in the U. S. Navy and was stationed in the Philippine Islands from 1944 to 1946.

Davies's experience in administration includes serving as a high school principal in Tennant, Iowa, from 1929 to 1934. He served as Howard County superintendent of schools in Chester, Iowa, from 1934 to 1936. He was director of research and president of the Iowa State Education Association. He also served as secretary and was on the board of directors for the Kiwanis Club of Cresco, Iowa.

Professor Davies joined the faculty at the State University of Iowa in 1949 as director of Instructional Services, a unit within the Extension Division, now the Division of Continuing Education. The Instructional Services unit was renamed the Bureau of Correspondence Study in 1963 and the Center for Credit Programs in 1978. The unit offered liberal arts and business courses as distance education and a Saturday class program. The SUI Writer's Workshop first offered distance courses in fiction and poetry writing during 1963.

In 1976 Davies received the Walter Bittner Award from the National University Extension Association, now the University Continuing Education Association, for his outstanding service to continuing education at SUI. Professor Davies retired in June 1976.

He married Esto Strahan in June 1931. Esto died in 1968. Davies married Elva K. Hull in 1972. John Leonard Davies died on January 5, 1981.