John King Davis

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John King Davis as First Officer of the Nimrod (1907)

John King Davis (born February 19, 1884 in Kew , Surrey , United Kingdom , † May 8, 1967 in Melbourne , Australia ) was an Australian navigator and explorer , best known for his work on expedition ships during the so-called Golden Age of Antarctic exploration .

Life

Origin and early years

John King Davis was the only son of James Green Davis, an instructor in the Royal Army , and his wife Marion Alice (nee King). He completed his education at Colet Court in London and Burford Grammar School in Oxfordshire . In 1900, Davis traveled to Cape Town with his father . The absence of his father in Kimberly took Davis to summarily as a Page Boy on the mail boat Carisbrooke Castle to hire for the return trip to England. In Liverpool in the same year he signed up for a four-year service on the tall ship Celtic Chief and drove to Australia for the first time. He finished his training as a seaman on July 16, 1905; he passed the board of trade exam and received a certificate for second mate on board merchant ships. He then worked on the Bark Westland in the liner service between England and New Zealand and finally Port Jackson . In June 1906 he was certified as first mate in Sydney , and in August 1908 in New Zealand he was certified as navigational officer.

Nimrod expedition

Route of the Nimrod under John King Davis between Australia and Cape Horn in search of the sub-Antarctic Phantom Islands (May and June 1909)

During a visit to London, Davis applied to Ernest Shackleton to participate in his Antarctic expedition (1907-1909) after he happened upon the expedition office on Regent Street . Davis received the post of first officer on board the expedition ship Nimrod under Captain Rupert England (1878-1942) on the outward voyage to Antarctica . He also held this post when the Nimrod under Captain Frederick Pryce Evans (1874-1959) resumed the landing crew from Ross Island to return to New Zealand in March 1909 . On March 25, 1909, Davis was given command of the Nimrod . With other expedition members on board, including Harry Dunlop and Alfred Cheetham , the ship set off from Sydney on May 8, 1909 for a voyage to the South Pacific. Davis was supposed to check the existence of some sub-Antarctic islands and archipelagos on the Admiralty maps south of the 50th parallel . The route led eastwards across the Royal Company Islands , Emerald Island , the Nimrod Group and Dougherty Island , all of which turned out to be Phantom Islands . Davis also found that Macquarie Island was in the wrong position on the nautical charts. After the Nimrod had circled Cape Horn at the end of June , she arrived in Falmouth on August 24, 1909 , after a stopover in Montevideo and an almost two-month voyage across the Atlantic . Davis then helped Shackleton manage the remaining expeditionary affairs until March 1911.

Aurora expedition

Douglas Mawson , who had also participated in the Nimrod expedition, made Davis deputy head of the Aurora expedition (1911-1914) to Antarctica and captain of the expedition ship Aurora . During this research trip, Davis made five trips, which among other things were decisive for the establishment of the research bases on Macquarie Island, in the Commonwealth Bay and on the Shackleton Ice Shelf .

First World War

When the First World War broke out , Davis volunteered and was initially part of the troop transport staff in Sydney . Then he was captain of the Boonah transporter to ship Australian cavalry units to England and Egypt . In October 1916, at the urging of the British, Australian and New Zealand governments, he was once again given command of the Aurora to rescue the Ross Sea Party , the support group for Ernest Shackleton's ultimately failed attempt to cross the Antarctic continent for the first time as part of the endurance expedition . Davis returned to New Zealand on February 9, 1917 with the survivors of the Ross Sea Party, who had to endure two winters in adverse conditions and inadequate equipment on Ross Island. From April 1917, Davis was still committed to military service for twelve months in a leading position in the construction of a coking plant in Port Pirie , South Australia . After his promotion to Lieutenant Commander of the Reserve Forces of the Royal Australian Navy , he was responsible in London for coordinating the return of the Australian Imperial Force and returned with them to Australia in October 1919.

Next life

In 1920 Davis was appointed Commonwealth Director of Navigation and held this post until his retirement on February 19, 1949. Under his responsibility, a storm warning station was established on Willis Island, one of the Coral Sea Islands. In the meantime he took over command of the research vessel Discovery for the first voyage on the occasion of the BANZARE (1929-1931) under the direction of Douglas Mawson. From 1947 to 1962 he was a member of the committee that advised the Australian government on Antarctic issues. Davis remained unmarried and after his retirement lived in a house on St Kilda Road in central Melbourne . He died on May 8, 1967 at the age of 83 in a hospital in the Toorak district and was buried in Melbourne General Cemetery .

Awards and aftermath

Davis was awarded the silver polar medal with two clasps for his services to polar research . In addition, he was since 1915 recipient of the Murchison Award of the Royal Geographical Society . From 1920 he was a member of the Royal Society of Victoria , which he served as President from 1945 to 1946. In 1964 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire at the level of Commander (CBE). Furthermore, the Australian Davis research station in the Antarctic is named after him. He is also the namesake of the following geographic objects in the Antarctic:

The Davis Dome , a mountain on the island of Heard in the southern Indian Ocean , also bears his name .

literature

Own works

  • John King Davis: With the “Aurora” in the Antarctic (1911-1914) . Andrew Melrose, London 1919 (English, from archive.org [accessed October 11, 2015]).
  • John King Davis: Willis Island: a Storm Warning Station in the Coral Sea . Critchley Parker, London 1923.
  • John King Davis: High Latitude . Melbourne University Press, Melbourne 1962.

Literature cited

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Huntford, Shackleton , 1985, p. 176.
  2. ↑ JK Davis: Voyage of the SY “Nimrod.”: Sydney to Monte Video Viâ Macquarie Island, May 8-July 7, 1909. In: Geographical Journal 36 (6), 1910, pp. 696-703 (English, accessed on October 11, 2015).
  3. ↑ Riffenburgh, Nimrod , 2006, pp. 371–373.
  4. ↑ John King Davis. Entry in the database of the Australian Antarctic Division (accessed October 12, 2015).
  5. ↑ Kenneth J. Bertrand and Fred G. Alberts: Geographic names of Antarctica . US Govt. Print. Off., Washington 1956, p. 101 (accessed October 12, 2015).
personal data
SURNAME Davis, John King
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian navigator and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH Kew , Surrey , United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1967
Place of death Melbourne , Australia