Background
Davis, John Williams was born on November 21, 1887 in St. Petersburg, Virginia, United States. Son of Richard Beale and Annie Warwick (Hall) Davis.
Davis, John Williams was born on November 21, 1887 in St. Petersburg, Virginia, United States. Son of Richard Beale and Annie Warwick (Hall) Davis.
Preparatory education, St. Petersburg Academy, 1897-1904. Randolph Macon College, Ashland, Virginia, 1904-1906. Mechanical Engineering, Cornell Univercity, 1910.
Master of Science, University of Illinois, 1917.
Instructor in electrical engineering, Harvard University, 1910-1911, Vanderbilt, 1912-1913, Stanford, 1913-1914, University of Illinois, 1914-1917. Also with various engineering firms for short periods, 1910-1917. Research in helium gas, United States Bureau Mines (inventor process for separation of helium from natural gas), 1919-1925.
Head of development division, later head of technical department Atmospheric Nitrogen Corporation, Syracuse, New York, and Hopewell, Virginia, 1925-1929.
Has been construction engineering, Atmospheric Nitrogen Corporation and The Solvay Process Company, since 1929(inventor of improvements in processes for nitrogen fixation).
Member commission to Toronto, Canada, on establishment of schools of military aeronautics in the United States, 1917.
Married Elizabeth Grimes Walker, October 22, 1921. Children: John Williams, Elizabeth Walker, Timothy Pickering.