The Davies Name
Davies is a patronymic Welsh name that is the second most common in Wales and the eighth most common in England. It has become widespread in southwest and northwest England.
Possible origins of the Davies name include it being after Dyfed, a medieval Welsh kingdom centred on modern Pembrokeshire, or after the David,the patron saint of Wales.
The Davies - Bruce connection came about with the marriage of Josephine Davies to Clyde Alexander Bruce.
Josephine Davies also came form a mining family. Her father John Davies was born in Minmi NSW west of Newcastle, and was a draper when he married Mary Anne Northey in 1892. The following year he was lured to the gold mines of Hillgrove and Metz living there for more than twenty years and raising a family.
John was the son of John Davies and Anne Cloke who immigrated from Devon with one daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, as assisted passengers.
Metz
Within about a year after arriving in New South Wales, John was lured to the gold mines of Hillgrove and Metz living there for more than twenty years and raising a family.
The village of Metz was originally known as Sunshine. As the village became established in 1889 it was often called "West Hillgrove" until the name Metz became official in 1892. Its growth was due to the discovery of gold and the development of mines on the western side of Bakers Creek Gorge. The population grew to about 750 before declining as the mines closed. By the late 1920s the hotel, post office and school had been closed.
Today the only memory of the Davies family in Metz are the graves of Josephine siblings Alfreda and Jack who died as a young child and infant respectively and whose graves, alongside only a few others, lie among trees with access through private property:
1km south on Metz or Sandon Road past an old tumbledown hayshed and 2 or 3 houses then walk about 300m from the road, east towards the gorge. The old cemetery is in the trees on Crown land.
New Lambton
With the downturn in mining in the Hillgrove area the family moving back to the Newcastle area at Hobart Street New Lambton, where John was a grocer before retiring as an invalid pensioner.
He died at home at the age of 66 while Mary Anne lived on at New Lambton until she was 84 years old. They were both buried in the Methodist Section at Sandgate Cemetery.