Cup is played for by year nine and ten high school cricketers in southern Tasmania. Davies was also involved in other sports, including Australian rules football, where he served as a senior administrator, horse racing (as an owner) and rifle shooting, holding office in Tasmanian and National Rifle Associations for many years, culminating in his captaining of the Australian team which won the Kolapore Cup at Bisley, England, in 1902. Business career After leaving school, Davies trained as a journalist at The Mercury, eventually becoming general manager. In 1871 Davies and his brother took over the company from their father and established The Mercury as Tasmania's preeminent newspaper and started the weekly Tasmanian Mail in 1877. Politics Davies was elected as an alderman of Hobart City Council in 1883, and first served as mayor of Hobart in 1885. A justice of the peace, Davies served three terms as mayor before his retirement in 1901. He was in charge of the Tasmanian industrial court at the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition of 1888, and was honorary commissioner for Tasmania at the 1889 Paris Exhibition. Chief magistrate of Hobart in the 1890s, he was appointed first chairman of the Metropolitan Drainage Board in 1899 and was also for many years chairman of the Public Cemetery Trust and of the Hobart Licensing Bench. Politically conservative, Davies was first elected to the Electoral district of Fingal in the Tasmanian House of Assembly on 27 August 1884, and was still serving in parliament at his death, switching to in the newly formed division of Denison in 1909. In parliament, Davies was chairman of committees from 1892 to 1903 and Speaker from 1903 to his death in 1913. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) on 15 May 1901, in recognition of his service as Mayor of the City of Hobart and in preparation of the royal visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York (later King George V and Queen Mary) He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) on 25 June 1909 for his services as Speaker of the Tasmanian House of Assembly. Personal life Davies married twice, the first to Sarah Ann Pearce on 27 January 1869 at St John's Church of England, New Town, with whom he had seven children. Following Sarah's death in 1888,