In later life, Jack Davies was able to visit America and meet his American friends and fellow model engineers for a face-to-face chinwag. It was also an ideal opportunity to study the original plans for his J. W. Bowker project, which took him the best part of a decade to complete.
While there, he also visited relatives in California, including his aunt Bessie, born in 1897. During his visits to America Jack took a number of photographs, recording the people, places and machinery that caught his eye. This collection presents a small selection of those images.
Jack Davies in the American West, during one of his visits to the United States.
Always interested in the real McCoy
Orange picking in California
Jack Davies picking oranges in California. I remember him saying how much he enjoyed this experience.
Jack Davies with two American friends united by a love of engineering - on the left Snub Pollard - Jack Davies and on the far right, Barny Bainsfather
Jack Davies beside one of the locomotives at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum at Mount Clare, Baltimore, during his 1977 tour of the United States.
In his account A Limey Visits Ohio U.S.A., Jack wrote of the visit:
“The exhibits at the museum are too numerous to mention but I do consider that alone is worth a trip to the States.”
He went on to describe spending considerable time examining the museum's full-size wooden model of the 1844 Ross Winans “Mud Digger”, making notes “for future use.”
Jack’s Final American Journey — 1983
On 18 September 1983, at the age of 83, Jack set out on what would prove to be his final journey to America. Flying from Gatwick via Dallas, he arrived in Reno that evening and spent the following three weeks visiting friends and travelling in northern California and Nevada before returning home on 11 October.
Unlike his earlier American photographs, relatively few images in this final album were identified or captioned. Rather than attempt to reconstruct details that Jack did not record, selected pages are reproduced largely as he arranged them, preserving something of the character of the original album.
Lena Joaquin Calvin — Susanville, September 1983
During Jack's 1983 visit to Susanville, California, he attended the funeral of Lena Joaquin Calvin (1892–1983), a lifelong resident of Lassen County and daughter of Mattie and “Old Man Joaquin”, described in the contemporary obituary as a subchief of the Watadacuda Paiute Tribe.
Lena died on 18 September 1983 and her funeral was held at the Indian Mission Church, Susanville, on 21 September, followed by burial at Susanville Indian Cemetery. Jack preserved the obituary and funeral programme alongside his photographs of the grave and the gathering outside the church.
The page provides a rare precise date within Jack's largely uncaptioned 1983 American album.
Jack in America, 1983
ack enjoying a beer during his final visit to America. At 83, he was still travelling, still meeting old friends and, characteristically, wearing the cowboy hat he had acquired on his American travels.
Abandoned road machinery, American West
Old crawler tractor and grader photographed by Jack Davies during his travels in America.
Jack beside an enormous boulder during his travels in the American West
Jack beside an enormous boulder during his travels in the American West
