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History of Captain J.K. Davis

John King Davis was born in Kew in England on 19 February 1884, the second child and first son of James Green and Marion Alice Davis. After a grammar school education, in 1900 the 16 year-old Davis and his father sailed to South Africa and soon after he ran away to sea, signing up as a steward’s boy on the steamer Carisbrooke Castle. By 1907 Davis had sufficiently progressed in age, knowledge and experience to be appointed as the Chief Officer on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod Expedition and departed for Antarctica for the first time in August of that year. During this expedition he formed a firm and life-long friendship with geologist Douglas Mawson. Mawson was accompanying Shackleton’s expedition as part of a side-quest to reach the South Magnetic Pole, along with T.W. Edgeworth Davis and Alistair McKay, which goal was successfully achieved on 16 January 1909. In 1909 Captain Davis was awarded the Polar Medal (Bronze) for his part in the Nimrod expedition.

In 1911 Davis was appointed Captain of the SY Aurora, the ship with which he is most closely associated and for which he retained the fondest memories. By now Mawson had raised sufficient funds to mount his own expedition and the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) set sail on 2 December 1911 for Macquarie Island and then for Commonwealth Bay on the coast of Antarctica on board the SY Aurora, with Davis as second-in-command. Between 1911 and 1914 Davis and his crew made five AAE voyages managing uncharted coastlines, difficult and dangerous weather conditions and problems with the ship as well as the difficulties faced by the expedition itself. For his contribution to the AAE Captain Davis was awarded the Polar Medal (Silver) in 1915.

Davis returned to Antarctica on board the SY Aurora once again in October 1916 on behalf of the British, Australian and New Zealand governments, with Shackleton as supernumerary. This was the Imperial Trans-Atlantic Expedition (ITAE) Ross Sea Relief Expedition, mounted to rescue Shackleton’s ‘shore party’ left at McMurdo Sound to support their leader’s epic (but ill-fated) attempt to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea. After being marooned for two winters with inadequate supplies and equipment, the last members of the ITAE safely reached New Zealand in the Aurora on 9 February 1917. In 1917 Davis was awarded a second clasp to the Polar Medal (Bronze) for his part in these efforts.

On either side of the Ross Sea Relief Expedition, during World War I Davis spent time in the Royal Australian Naval Reserve transporting soldiers and horses to England and Egypt and repatriating troops after the War. He then undertook a number of private and public roles including becoming the Commonwealth Director of Navigation in 1920, which post he retained until his retirement in 1949. Davis also worked to establish the cyclone warning station on remote Willis Island in 1921, spending six months on the island himself. He spent 15 years on the committee advising the Australian Government on Antarctic policy and was a long-term Council member of the Royal Society of Victoria and President in 1946 and 1947.

In 1929-30 Davis returned to Antarctica for the final time as Captain of the RRS Discovery on the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE), once again in company with Douglas Mawson. BANZARE laid the groundwork for establishing the future Australian Antarctic Territory through multiple territorial claims as well as scientific work in a range of fields including geology, meteorology and oceanography. Davis received a third clasp to the Polar Medal (Bronze) for his part in this expedition.

Through these experiences Davis gained a reputation as one of the most capable and reliable Antarctic sea-captains, if one considered a little dour and reserved. “Gloomy” was his well-deserved nickname and his tall, red-headed figure was well known in Government and Antarctic circles. Later in life he had close relationships with his Australian-based family and was known to have an excellent sense of humour. Davis was immensely trusted and respected in many fields and his reputation as the greatest master-mariner of the Heroic Age – and since – only continues to grow.

John King Davis never married and had no children. He lived his latter years in a comfortable boarding house for single gentlemen in Toorak, a well-to-do suburb of Melbourne, and published his autobiography, High Latitude, in 1962. He died on 8 May 1967 in hospital and was buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery (MGC) on 10 May 1867 in the grave of his half-brother, Arthur.

References and further information:

John King Davis (1884-1967) – Australian Antarctic Division website

John King Davis (1884-1967) by John Bechervaise – Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1981

Medals of Captain John King Davis CBE. The two Polar Medals are on the right.
His CBE Medal is not included and its current whereabouts are being researched.
Photo by Melanie Van Twest

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History of Arthur Davis

The knowledge that Captain Davis’s grave was shared by another burial only came to light when investigation into this project began. The Melbourne General Cemetery (MGC) advised us that the grave was also occupied by Arthur Davis who was buried on 22 April 1875.

Subsequent investigation into Births, Deaths and Marriages archives for the Colony of Victoria revealed a previously little-known fact: that Davis’s father, James Green Davis, had lived, worked, married and had a family in Melbourne in the 1860s and 1870s.

The elder Davis was an Irish teacher from County Cork who married Emily Whitmore (nee Harris) in October 1868, Emily being described as ‘widow’ and ‘milliner’ in their marriage record. They had two known children. In a sad but not uncommon story for the time, all three of Davis senior’s first wife and children died prematurely: little Emily Rose in November 1869 at three months and Arthur in 1875 at four-and-a-half years. The fate of Emily Davis senior is so far unknown and is under research.

From her death certificate it is known that Emily Rose is buried elsewhere in the MGC. Her grave site is to be investigated. As a small baby, she may have been interred in a collective grave with other babies as a lower-cost option for burial.

The grave plot at the MGC had therefore been purchased by James Green Davis to bury his son Arthur, whose death certificate states that he died of typhoid and measles aged four-and-a-half on 21 April 1875. John King Davis clearly knew about the MGC grave, electing to be buried there himself in 1967, almost a century after his small half-brother’s death, thus connecting the brothers in love and memory.

After the loss of his first family James Green Davis returned to Britain where he married Marion Alice King in 1881 and with whom he had three children: Elizabeth Joan (born 1881), John King (born 1884) and Mary Alice (born 1886). All three children from his second marriage survived to adulthood.

References:

Arthur Davis – death cert – 21-04-1875