In 1903, his father bought out the other shareholders, and divided those shares equally between Davis and his elder brother Chris.

Following the same pattern as in New Zealand, the Davis family bought out competitors in Australia and expanded the Botany factory.

Davis’s maternal cousin Jack Ball emigrated to Australia, in 1924, and became manager of the Botany factory and a director of the Australian company.

[1] The organisation sought additional capital from the public in late 1921, floating Davis Gelatine (Australia) Limited, issuing both ordinary shares and debentures, with the objective of paying down the debts incurred in its rapid expansion.

The company promoted use of gelatin through recipes for 'Davis Dainty Dishes' that it published, over many years beginning in 1922, both in booklet form[6][7] and in publications, particularly the cookery pages of The Australian Women's Weekly.

'[12][13][14] The Davis Gelatine recipe booklets were published in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa, and from 1932 in Great Britain.

The main ingredients of jelly crystals—such as Aeroplane Jelly—were dry granular gelatin and sugar, with flavouring, and used in the commercial production of ice cream.

[1][4][5] The plant consumed four million gallons of water per week, drawn from the Botany Swamps aquifer and then clarified and filtered.

The raw materials were pieces of animal skin that could not be used in the process of tanning and small sinews, both by-products of the meat industry.

[1][2] However, his life remained dominated by business, as he became involved in other areas of activity that were important to Australia’s response to the deteriorating international situation during the 1930s and the Great Depression.

Possessed of seemingly boundless energy and initiative, Davis formed a syndicate of business interests to take out a lease on the moribund Cockatoo Island Dockyard, The yard had been badly affected by a High Court decision, in 1929, which effectively precluded the Commonwealth government-owned dockyard from tendering for work against private companies, and by the effects of the Great Depression.

He turned the dockyard operations around and expanded the range of services it could provide, in time for it to become a vital part of the war effort.

The revival of the dockyard had brought Davis to the attention of the Commonwealth and New South Wales governments, as a person who could tackle something new and get it done, quickly and effectively.

[24] However, both the governments at the time were controlled by the United Australia Party—a political party that favoured private enterprise as opposed to government ownership of industries—and rightly or wrongly, Davis was seen as being associated with that side of politics.In the 1930s, Australia was almost entirely dependent for its petroleum supplies on imports; at best there was some local refining of imported crude oil.

[25] A public notice in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, on 28 May 1936, invited offers for developing the oil industry in the Glen Davis area.

[26] Davis withdrew almost entirely from his other activities, and threw himself into the task of creating a modern shale oil industry.

It was later said of him by Bertram Stevens that, "the Lyons Administration and my own, asked him to shoulder this further national obligation at Glen Davis.

He promptly agreed, and without stint gave to it his time and boundless energy and much of his resources taking from it not one penny of reward.

"[24] He made a tour of existing plants in other countries, visiting Scotland, Germany, Estonia and the United States, over eleven months.

Samples of oil shale were sent to Estonia and the United States for trial processing into refined petroleum products.

[35][36] Davis chose not to re-establish operations at Newnes but instead to build an entirely new plant in the relatively remote Capertee Valley.

The plant had cost  £1,300,000, and more capital was raised from shareholders, with the Commonwealth Government providing more funds in the form of a £225,000 loan.

Its plan would be influenced by the ‘Garden City’ movement, and was very much in line with Davis’s own view on ideal workers communities.

[42] It is probable that during this time Davis discussed the sale of Cockatoo Dockyard & Engineering with its eventual buyer, Vickers.

Never profitable, the Glen Davis Shale Oil Works was closed in May 1952, once its accumulated losses had exceeded the value of capital and loans.

[25] Glen Davis soon became virtually a ghost town, declining from a population of 2000 at its peak to only 115, including the surrounding area, in 2016.

[45][46][47][48] There was still, in 2022, a thriving market in second-hand copies of 'Davis Dainty Dishes' recipe booklets, many of which seem to have survived the changing fashions of home cooking.