Rock Davis
Rock Davis was a shipbuilder, mainly associated with his shipyard, the Rock Davis shipyard, colloquially known as 'the Big Shed', on Brisbane Water at Blackwall, New South Wales, Australia. After his death, the business of ship building was carried on by his second son, also Rock Davis. The shipyard constructed around 165 wooden-hulled vessels, between 1862 and 1913.
Family background and early life
Rock Davis was born at sea—aboard the ship Mary Catherine on which the Davis family were migrating to New South Wales—on 2 July 1833. His parents were William Davis and his second wife Sarah, née Mayer. His unusual first name is said to have been either after the Rock of Gibraltar—the ship was said to be near there at the time of his birth—or after the captain of Mary Catherine, Benjamin Rock Jones. William Davis was a school teacher, and he and his Irish family had no background as shipwrights.At the time of his birth, Rock Davis had two elder sisters—Elizabeth and Mary Ann —and four surviving elder brothers—George, John, Benjamin, and Thomas. He also had two surviving half-siblings from his father's first marriage to Isobel, née Milsop, Sarah and William. All arrived in the colony in October 1833. His parents later had another son, Edward.
The Davis family settled on the eastern side of Brisbane Water, and William became the first schoolmaster at the then small settlement of Kincumber. After moderate success, mining gold at Beechworth, Rock joined his brothers, Benjamin, Thomas, and Edward, as apprentice shipwrights, in the yard of Jonathan Piper , at what is now Yattalunga. Piper was one of the first of the shipwrights to build wooden-hulled vessels in the Brisbane Water area. The area had plentiful sheltered tidal foreshore, not far from the open sea at Broken Bay, and nearby sources of hardwood timber and stands of sub-tropical rainforest. Brisbane Water was well-suited to the construction of wooden-hulled vessels, and over 500 would be built there, between 1829 and 1953.
Davistown is named after the Davis family. It is where the various family shipbuilding businesses had their origin, and where Rock Davis's elder brother George Davis and his wife Jane were for many years storekeepers and butchers. Rock and two other Davis shipwright brothers built their first vessel, together, around 1854. In 1858, Rock set up in business for himself, building wooden-hulled vessels.
Thomas Davis later had a shipyard, at Terrigal Haven, in the lee of Broken Head. Thomas was the builder of the stern-wheel paddle steamer, General Gordon. She was built for the tourist trade but is most remembered as the ferry that connected the two railways on either side of the Hawkesbury River, before and during the construction of the first Hawkesbury River railway bridge. Benjamin Davis had a shipyard at Bensville, which is named after him. Edward Davis eventually left the Brisbane Water area, and set up a sawmilling and shipbuilding business, on the Nambucca River, near Nambucca Heads, on the Mid North Coast. Between them, the four Davis brothers and their families operated a total of eight shipyards and made over 300 wooden vessels up to 1913.
Rock Davis shipyard
Initially, Rock Davis's shipbuilding business was on Cockle Channel at Davistown.Davis moved his operations to thirteen acres of foreshore land, on the western side of Brisbane Water, in 1862. It was he who first named the area Blackwall, after Blackwall, London, which was also a centre of shipbuilding.
This new site was alongside deeper water and closer to the main channel and the entrance to Brisbane Water, and it was easier for timber to be transported, over water or by sea, and landed at the shipyard. It would later benefit from its proximity to the new Main Northern railway line. However, in 1862, Blackwall was sparsely populated and the only practical access to the area was by water, both would not change until the arrival of the railway. Into the early, 1880s, the area around Davis's shipyard and house was the only significant place of settlement in the southern part of the western shore of Brisbane Water.
The yard had a sawmill to mill local hardwood timber for use in shipbuilding. To allow work to proceed in all weather, in 1864, Davis erected a large shelter, known as 'the Big Shed', which was a distinctive landmark in the area, until its demolition in 1923.
On the northern end of the shipyard was Davis's large house, constructed of brick and with a slate-tiled roof, very different to the other rustic dwellings in the area. Lying to the south of the shipyard was Davis's extensive vegetable and fruit garden, which was tended by a man of Japanese ethnicity, Harry Kowarta.
Vessels made by Rock Davis achieved a high reputation and the shipyard was busy; in 1878, six vessels were launched there in eleven months, and it was described as a 'thriving township'. In 1868, the yard had employed around a dozen men. However, it soon became the largest of the yards on Brisbane Water, with Davis employing around 100 men in total, and his businesses were a mainstay of the local economy.
The yard only built vessels with wooden hulls. Any steamships would be fitted with engines and any other machinery elsewhere, usually in Sydney. Hulls were typically clad in copper and fitted with decking, typically of imported timber such as kauri, and superstructures, at the yard.
The vessels
The first vessel built in the yard at Blackwall was Centurion in 1863.Sailing vessels
The yard built numerous sailing vessels, mainly ketches and schooners, but also some cutter-rigged boats.Ketches built at the yard included Champion, Greyhound, Lokohu, Ben Bolt, Zeoma, Arab, and Wave.
Topsail schooners built at the yard included, Undaunted, Enterprise, Isabel, Amelia Sims.
Fore-and-aft rig schooners built at the yard included, Eva, the three-masted Neptune, Susie, Tivo, Nukamanu, Joseph Sims, Three Friends, and Goodwill.
In the later years, some sailing vessels, built in the yard, also had auxiliary engines, fuelled by oil.
Steamers
'Auxiliary steamers'
Some of the steamships built at the yard were 'auxiliary steamships', with two tall masts described as 'fore and aft schooner rigged'. Whether or not they normally carried sails in service is uncertain. The tall masts also allowed suspended planks, gaffs, winches, derricks, etc. to be erected for unloading at small ports. Such vessels included, Dairymaid, Mikado, and Friendship.Ferries
Sydney Harbour ferries
The yard built steam ferries for Sydney Harbour ferry companies, including Barranjuee, Coomba, Aleathea, Defiance, Possum, Vaucluse, and Lady Chelmsford. The last vessel to be delivered by the yard was the steam ferry, Woollahra, in 1913.Vaucluse, Lady Chelmsford, and Woollahra were built to the designs of the innovative naval architect, Walter Reeks.
The yard also built the paddle-wheeler 'horse ferry', Bungaree, an early vehicular ferry, which crossed the harbour from Circular Quay to the North Shore. The ill-fated ferry, Greycliffe was sometimes erroneously attributed to the Rock Davis yard, which later made her companion ferry, Woollahra, with which she may have been confused, but Greycliffe was made in the David Drake yard.
Other ferries
The yard built a ferry for the Melbourne-Williamstown service, Williamstown, in 1910. It built the twin-screw steam ferry Zephyr—designed by Walter Reeks—for McIlwraith McEacharn, in 1906. After having its engines and other machinery fitted at Morrison and Sinclair, in Sydney, Zephyr was delivered to Fremantle under its own power, calling at Melbourne, Adelaide and Albany. Zephyr operated on the Swan River, from Perth to Fremantle and to Rottnest Island, and was capable of making sea trips to as far as Geraldton. The yard also built ferries, for operation on Brisbane Water and Broken Bay, including Florrie.Stone Fleet and sixty-miler ships
The tough little wooden steamships that the yard made proved well suited to the 'Stone Fleet', which brought crushed stone from the southern Illawarra to Sydney. At least four ships built at the Rock Davis shipyard were 'Stone Fleet' ships; Civility, Dunmore, Kiltobranks, and Belbowrie.Ships from the Rock Davis shipyard had a reputation for being well-built, solid, and durable. When the wooden-hull steamer Civility collided with Illawarra, off Kiama, in August 1881, and it was Civility that towed Illawarra back to Kiama. She collided with You Yang in January 1886—after which she sank off Bradleys Head but was apparently refloated—and with Vision in July 1902, surviving to be broken up in 1918. The wooden-hulled Dunmore, survived several collisions, most notably when she collided with the larger steel-hulled sixty-miler, Kelloe, in May 1902; it was Kelloe that sank, with Dunmore picking up her crew before being beached at Kurnell. The small coastal steamer Belbowrie, had several lucky escapes, before she went onto the rocks on the southern side of Maroubra Bay in January 1931.Sixty-miler was the colloquial name for a ship of the coastal coal-carrying trade. Steamships built by the yard that were sixty-milers, were Colo and Queen Bee. ''Belbowrie and Dunmore were used also, at times, as sixty-miler colliers.
Little ships like Colo'' were suited to shallow-water ports such as Sheas Creek, on Botany Bay.