Search

Davis Station Postmasters

Steve Bennett
Dec 24, 2018
2 min read

John King Davis - Antarctic navigator who in 1907 became chief officer of Shackleton's steam yacht Nimrod, sailing for Antarctica on 07.Aug.1907.

After the British Antarctic Expedition, Davis commanded the Nimrod, sailing via Macquarie Island and Cape Horn. In 1911 he was then appointed master of the Aurora, and second-in-command of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-14, under Douglas Mawson. During the expedition he made five cruises, essential in establishing and relieving the wintering bases at Macquarie Island and, on the Antarctic mainland, at Commonwealth Bay and on the Shackleton Ice Shelf.

In 1916 he commanded the 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, its members reached New Zealand in the Aurora on 9 February 1917.

A career Royal Australian Navy officer, he took leave to command the Discovery during the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition 1929-30 under Mawson.

Australia's second station on the Antarctic Continent, established in 1957, was named Davis Station in his honour.

Further to my last blog, some readers may know that I have been writing an encyclopaedia of Antarctic philately. As a part of this I have been trying to document the people who have been postmasters at the Australian Antarctic bases. I will publish all these in coming blog posts, but here is what I know of the Postmasters during expeditions to Davis Station: