Cover title: The art & life of David Davies. Ill. by David Davies. Born on 21 May 1864 at Ballarat, Victoria, son of Thomas Davies, miner, and his wife Mary, née Harris. His parents were both from South Wales; David was one of six children. As a boy he attended both Redan and Sebastopol state schools and later art classes at the Ballarat School of Mines and Industries. He worked for a short time for a jeweller in Bridge Street, Ballarat, and then in 1887-90 studied at the National Gallery School, Melbourne, under G. F. Folingsby. In 1885 he became a member of the Buonarotti Club whose members included E. Phillips Fox, Frederick McCubbin and Tom Roberts. In the late 1880s he and Roberts, Conder, Streeton, Walter Withers and others frequently painted at Eaglemont, near Heidelberg, at a property owned by Charles Davies, the brother of Davies's future wife. One of his best-known paintings from this period, 'The Burden and Heat of the Day', was subsequently purchased by the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery. (Australian Dictionary of Biography.)