John King Davis CBE (1884 - 1967)

Born 19 Feb 1884 in Kew, Richmond, London, England, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Died 8 May 1967 at age 83 in Toorak, Victoria, Australia

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Biography

John Davis CBE is Notable.

John King Davis (known as ‘Gloomy Davis’ by his crew) (1884–1967) Born in Surrey, England to James Davis and Marion nee King, he was educated at Colet Court, London, and Burford Grammar School, Oxfordshire. Davis did not have a family of his own, but had an enduring love of the sea and exploration. Described by many as the greatest captain in Antarctic history, his contribution was honoured by the Australian Antarctic Division, naming one of its four permanent Antarctic research stations ‘Davis’, in 1957.

Work

In the classic seafaring tradition, Captain Davis ran away to sea as a boy. His father, a teacher who had earlier taught for four years at Sydney Grammar, was sent to South Africa with the Field Force Agency during the Boer war. He took his son with him. While Davis sen. was away in Kimberley, Davis jun. haunted the Capetown docks. He was bored, he recalls. "One day I started talking to a tallyman. He pointed to the Carisbrook Castle and asked me why I didn't go aboard and get a job. "I went fearfully aboard. A voice told me to be off and I retired fast, my seafaring career apparently at an abrupt end."

It was not the end, for 16-year-old John Davis returned to Carisbrook Castle and was signed on by the second steward as a passage worker. Uneasily — for he had left home stealthily after packing a few clothes into a cardboard box — he reported and was told: "Take you clothes down to the glory-hole then go below to the wharf and get those spuds on board." The future Captain Davis became pantryman's mate to an Irish pantryman. He washed up "what seemed to me millions of dishes." The only apparent consolation, apart from the geniality of the Irish pantryman, was the opportunity to absorb dozens of Neapolitan ices which should have been served to the first-class passengers. Arriving at Tilbury, he rushed ashore and bought a bottle of rum for the Irishman. The Irishman dealt with it in traditional manner, then announced rather alcoholically that "young Davis will one day be captain of his own ship." After such expert prophesy the sea was as much a part of young Davis's blood as the rum was part of the pantryman's.

As a 16 year old, he was steward’s boy on the Carisbrooke Castle before being apprenticed as a seaman on the Celtic Chief and visiting Australia. Perhaps it was during these formative years that he decided to settle in Melbourne when no longer seafaring.

Davis passed the Board of Trade examination to qualify as second mate, serving on the Westland and the Port Jackson. In 1906 he gained his first mate’s certificate in Australia, followed by his extra master’s certificate in New Zealand. Davis met Ernest Shackleton at an exhibition of polar equipment, and became Chief Officer of Shackleton’s Nimrod, sailing to Antarctica in 1907. He met Mawson on this expedition, forming a long lasting friendship. Davis worked on the Nimrod until March 1911, when he was appointed master of the Aurora for Mawson’s 1911–1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition. When Mawson married Francisca Paquita Delprat in 1914, Davis was best man, and he fondly kept the newspaper clipping of the event in a book in his personal collection.

At the end of a long passage from Sydney, the Port Jackson anchored at Gravesend and was visited by a young shipping reporter from the "Shipping Gazette" named A.E. Moyser. A fortnight later, Second Officer Davis met Moyser in Lower Regent Street, London, and accompanied him on a visit to an exhibition of polar equipment at No. 9 Regent Street. "I gathered that a Mr. Shackleton was going off to explore a strange new world surrounding the South Pole," Captain Davis recalls. "I was told they needed a mate for the Nimrod and was suddenly filled with a new excitement." He was ushered into an office to see Shackleton…"a dark-haired young man in a blue suit who looked like a deep-water sailor."

Shackleton asked him why he wanted to go to the Antarctic. "That stumped me. Until ten minutes before, I had never thought of it," says Captain Davis. Shackleton's next question was, unexpectedly: "Can you shovel coal?" For a man who expected detailed questions on navigation, this was a relief. He replied: "Anyone who has been on the west coast in sailing ships must be able to shovel coal." Before the day was out, Second Officer Davis was a potential Polar explorer.

The Nimrod's voyage was highly successful. Although Shackleton failed to reach the Pole, Davis, Mawson and Mackay reached the Magnetic Pole, volcanic Mt. Erebus was climbed for the first time and valuable scientific work was completed. The return to London was triumphant. Davis was appointed to command Nimrod for the voyage home and received the King's Polar Medal for his work.

In 1911, while in Canada, Captain Davis received a cable from Dr. Douglas Mawson, a young scientist who had been a member of the Shackleton party two years before. The cable asked Davis to "join me" in London. Mawson was preparing the Australasian Antarctic Expedition. Captain Davis rushed off to London to find Mawson had only £25. But…"money was unimportant; we went ahead with the plans and let the finances take care of themselves." Mawson appointed him deputy leader of the expedition and master of the Aurora, the expedition vessel.

Nearly half a century later, Captain Davis says: "This was my main life's work. It was a three-year assignment filled with the most extraordinary vicissitudes." He landed Mawson at his winter quarters then worked westward through unknown seas and discovered the Davis Sea and Queen Mary Land, where he landed Wild with his party of seven 1200 miles to the west. In 1912, he once more sailed Aurora through the uncharted, ice-strewn waters to pick up Wild's party and later, returned to bring off Mawson and the rest of the party. His feat of navigation and oceanography earned him the highly prized Murchison Award of the Royal Geographical Society.

After making significant contributions to the war effort, he became Commonwealth director of navigation. He established a cyclone warning system on Willis Island. Davis was a member of the Australian Government’s planning committee advising on Antarctic policy and endeavours from 1947 to 1962.

World War I

Davis joined the military embarkation staff at Sydney, commanding the Boonah, transporting troops and horses to England and Egypt. As lieutenant-commander, Royal Australian Naval Reserve, he contributed to the repatriation of the Australian Imperial Force.

Achievements in Antarctica

The 1911–1914 expedition encountered many challenges: dangerous weather, unchartered coastline, and problems with the ship including failing pumps in the engine room. In the Sydney Morning Herald of the 30th May 1929, Close writes of Davis’s crucial role in the expedition: “...so much of its safety and success hinged upon his masterly seamanship, firm decision of mind, and courageous daring in handling the expedition ship Aurora.” Davis, as Master of the Aurora, made several crucial voyages, establishing and relieving the wintering bases at Macquarie Island and on the Antarctic mainland, at Commonwealth Bay and the Shackleton Ice Shelf.

Davis had to make the difficult decision, whether to wait for blizzards and harsh seas to abate to collect Mawson’s party, or to relieve the second base party led by Frank Wild. He chose the latter.

In October, 1916, he commanded the Aurora to rescue Shackleton’s shore party, left at McMurdo Sound to support Shackleton’s attempt to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea. The party had spent two winters in Antarctica with inadequate supplies and must have been most relieved to see Davis who transported them safely to New Zealand.

He commanded the Discovery voyage (1929–1930), a British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) under Mawson’s leadership. The expedition mapped the coast of Antarctica which was proclaimed Australian Antarctic Territory.

Awards

Davis was twice recipient of the King’s Polar Medal. He also received the Murchison Award of the Royal Geographical Society and became a fellow of the society in 1915. From 1920 Davis was a member of the Royal Society of Victoria, and was its president in 1945 and 1946. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire-Commander (Civil) in 1964.

The Davis Sea was named in recognition of his incredible skill in negotiating the dangerous waters and ice around Antarctica. Davis’s portrait appropriately hangs in the ‘gallery of explorers’ in the Royal Geographical Society, London.

Imparting his knowledge of Antarctica

Davis’s publications include: With the ‘Aurora’ in the Antarctic, 1911–1914 (1919), Willis Island: a Storm Warning Station in the Coral Sea (1923), and High Latitude (1964), written with Bedford Osborne.

Personal attributes

Davis’s expertise during storms and dangerous ice conditions was praised by Shackleton. His personal attributes included being easy to talk to, big hearted, unselfish, influential, modest, and a stickler for discipline.

When Davis commanded the Discovery, on Mawson’s 1929–1930 expedition, there were disagreements between the two leaders on topics such as quantities of coal and the use of aircraft. Davis was adamant that it was the captain, not the expedition leader, who was responsible for decisions regarding the safety of the ship. Their friendship was strong enough to withstand differences in professional judgement, as they were united by a life-long passion for research expeditions to Antarctica.

The captain's mantelpiece carries copies of "The Life Of Nelson" and "Collected Poems of John Mansfield." He is, plainly, a man of the sea, even if a St. Kilda Road tram has replaced the tall ships of his earlier, saltwater days. It is a bitterly cold, gusty Melbourne day. As we walk around the corner to a Queens Road coffee shop, he leans into the wind, head bent, and talks about the colder winds that blow wild and bleak across the frozen wastes of Antarctica.

"It is cold, but I've known it so cold that I cried," said this tall, loping man. And he has, for he is a veteran polar explorer, a canvas-and-hemp sailor who took Shackleton and Mawson to the Antarctic. Captain John King Davis used to wear a fierce, red beard. The beard has gone. He is 75 years of age now and the beard would be grey anyhow. It was his trade mark on the Australian waterfront and in many of the world's ports. He was "Red" Davis to generations of mariners and to all who knew him in his later days as Australia's second Director of Navigation.

Now he seeks — in his own words — "tranquillity and obscurity." Perhaps he feels this will balance the scales after so many years of high adventure. The Antarctic was a field for the highest adventure in the period of Scott and Amundsen — whom he knew — and Shackleton and Mawson — whom he served. "It was all a tremendous mystery," says Captain Davis. "Just black marks on a chart with undefined coastlines. We felt like Christopher Colombus."

By this time, Captain Davis had come to regard himself — and to be regarded by others — as an Australian. He spent the early years of the first world war arranging the embarkation of Australian troops and commanded several Australian transports.

In 1916, he went south again, this time as leader of the relief expedition that rescued members of Shackleton's party who were marooned on Ross Island. After service with the Royal Australian Navy, Captain Davis came back to Australia and, in 1920, was appointed the Commonwealth's first director of navigation, a post he held for 29 years.

In 1921, he proposed the installation of a cyclone warning station at Willis Island in the Coral Sea. He was told it would be too difficult. Undeterred, he took leave from his own department and spent six months of the hurricane season on Willis Island establishing the station. He proved it possible and contributed substantially to Australia's storm-warning system.

But the tropics — and the public service — could not hold him permanently. In 1929, he was given leave to go to Antarctica again as commander of Discovery, the vessel which took Mawson south with the joint Commonwealth research expedition.

He resumed as director of navigation in 1930 and remained until his retirement in 1949. They were years in which the untamed sea was made safe. As a mariner, Captain Davis was a pioneer on behalf of his fellow mariners.

Now he lives in rather obscure retirement in a St. Kilda Road boarding house. A bachelor, he reads, writes, spends spare time at his club. "I have not been back to the Navigation Department since the day I left," he says. "Old men should disappear when their day is done."

There is a great deal to look back on. When he arrived in Australia nearly 60 years ago, sail had not given way to steam, Victoria reigned in England, the population of the new-born Australian Commonwealth was less than three million. Motor ships, wireless telegraphy, radio and aeroplanes were things of the future.

With these things behind him, Captain Davis still looks forward. He is an intensely optimistic Australian with great hopes for the country he chose as his own. He retains an active interest in the Antarctic and is an adviser to Australia's Antarctic division. In any case, his name has been irrevocably linked with the frozen southland since Australia named one of its permanent Antarctic stations after him. He has two Antarctic Medals and two bars. His portrait hangs in the gallery of explorers in the Royal Geographical Society's headquarters in London.

He disproves his own words. He is one "old man" who will never disappear because he has used adventure as a pen to write his name on the icy extremities of the earth.

J. K. Davis never married; in retirement, he lived in Melbourne in a St Kilda Road boarding house. He died on 8 May 1967 in a hospital at Toorak and was buried in Melbourne general cemetery, he was 83 years old. His estate was valued for probate at $87,407.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Added by Des Lynch on 28 February 2023

• Source: http://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/history/people/john-king-davis, Credit to the Australian Government: Dept of the Environment and Energy.

• Source: Magazine, New Age, Article written by Graham Perkin in "A Red Beard in Frozen Wastes of Antartica", published 16 Sep 1959 in Melbourne, Australia.

• Victorian Births, Deaths & Marriages: DEATH: DAVIS, John King - event: Death - mother: Marion Alice KING - father: DAVIS James Green - place of birth: Kew London England - place of death: Toorak - age at death: 83 - registration year: 1967 - registration no. 9878/1967. first accessed online on the 16th of October, 2022 from the Victorian Family History Search searchable database at: https://www.bdm.vic.gov.au/research-and-family-history/search-your-family-history

Further Reading

• Wikipedia: John King Davis
• Wikidata: Item Q2603652, en:Wikipedia

• John Béchervaise, Davis, John King (1884–1967), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/davis-john-king-5914/text10073, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 16 October 2022.

• Captain John King Davis, Antarctic Navigator & Commonwealth Director of Navigation (1884-1967) from the MUSEUMS VICTORIA COLLECTIONS website first accessed online on the 16th of October, 2022 at: https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/articles/10432

• Davis, John King (1884 - 1967) CBE FRGS from The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation as published by the Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology. first accessed online on the 16th of October 2022 at: https://www.eoas.info/biogs/P001009b.htm

• Davis, John King from the Scott Polar Research Institute as hosted on the Department of Geography, University of Cambridge first accessed online on the 16th of October 2022 at: https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/shackleton/biographies/Davis,_John_King/

• Prominent Personalities CAPTAIN J. K. DAVIS as published in the Table Talk (Melbourne, Vic. : 1885 - 1939) of Thursday 8 April 1926, Page 14. first accessed on TROVE on the 16th of October, 2022 at: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/146584702

• Find a Grave, database and images accessed 16 October 2022, memorial page for CPT John King Davis (1884–10 May 1967), Find a Grave Memorial ID Find A Grave: Memorial #200875018, citing Melbourne General Cemetery, Carlton North, Melbourne City, Victoria, Australia; Maintained by Tony M. (contributor 48299134) . (note there is no gravestone photograph as yet)