John Edward Davis

  • Artist (Painter)
Topographical painter and naval officer on the British Antarctic expedition 1839 to 1843. His illustrations of the voyage in J. Ross's 'Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions' include a sketch of Rossbank Observatory, Hobart Town.
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topographical painter and naval officer, was second officer under Captain Crozier on board the Terror on the 1839 43 British Antarctic expedition commanded by Captain (later Sir) James Clarke Ross in the accompanying Erebus . Six large finished watercolours painted during the expedition or subsequently developed from sketches Davis made on the voyage are held by the Scott Polar Institute, Cambridge. They depict the ships and some of the places where the expedition landed; one records the festivities on New Year’s Day in the Antarctic. All the illustrations in Ross’s published record of the expedition, Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions (2 vols, London 1847), were taken from Davis’s original sketches and watercolours, Ross stated in the preface. Again most were Antarctic images, but chapter 5 is headed by a vignette, Rossbank Observatory—Hobart Town .

The Rossbank magnetic observation station, built by convicts in nine days in August 1840 from plans sent direct from the British Admiralty, was the last of more than thirty stations erected between Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Cape Horn and was designed specifically for the expedition’s use during winter lay-offs. It was an important sign of scientific sophistication to the inhabitants of Van Diemen’s Land and Thomas Bock , Frances Simpkinson , G.T.W.B. Boyes , Knud Bull and E.A. Porcher all painted views of it. Lady Franklin commissioned Henry Mundy to paint her an official oil of it but he was unable to accept and the commission apparently went to Bock. Perhaps by way of compensation Captain Crozier presented Jane Franklin with a watercolour of the Rossbank observatory by Davis shortly afterwards – possibly a copy of the 'official report’ view. She acknowledged it with somewhat equivocal pleasure, writing to Ross on 28 October 1840 that 'its accuracy as a portrait more than compensates [for] any defects it may possess as a picture’. The only version now known is the wood-engraving in Ross’s Voyage .

Writers:
Kerr, Joan
Date written:
1992
Last updated:
2011

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