Background
Davis"s formal education, at Colet Court, London, and at Burford Grammar School, Oxfordshire, ended in 1900, when he and his father left London for Cape Town, South Africa.
Davis"s formal education, at Colet Court, London, and at Burford Grammar School, Oxfordshire, ended in 1900, when he and his father left London for Cape Town, South Africa.
Early exploration work Davis served as Chief Officer of the Nimrod during Ernest Shackleton"s Antarctic expedition in 1908–1909. He was Captain of the Aurora and second in command of Douglas Mawson"s Australasian Antarctic Expedition in 1911–1914. World War I At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Davis volunteered for active service, and was put in charge of the troop transport Boonah, carrying troops and horses to Egypt and England.
Later exploration work He also served as Captain of the Discovery in 1929–1930 in the course of the British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition.
Davis was Australia"s Commonwealth Director of Navigation from 1920 to 1949. lieutenant was at the beginning of this period that he volunteered to personally set up the remote Willis Island meteorological and cyclone warning station in 1921-1922.
Later work Davis was President of the Royal Society of Victoria 1945-1946, as well as being a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Davis Station in Antarctica, established in 1957, is named after him.
John King Davis died in 1967 in Toorak, Melbourne, aged 83.
Books authored by Davis include:(1919) With the Aurora in the Antarctic. Andrew Melrose: London(1921) Willis Island: a storm-warning station in the Coral Sea Critchley Parker: Melbourne. (1997) Trial by Ice. The Antarctic Journals of John King Davis (Edited by Louise Crossley) Bluntisham Books and Erskine Press: Bluntisham and Norwich ().