Australian Dictionary of Biography

David Roy Hocking (1920–2000), cartographer and surveyor, was born on 18 August 1920 at Ivanhoe, Victoria, eldest of five children of Victorian-born Frederick (Fred) Roy Hocking, civil servant, and his English-born wife Olive Lyla, née Sherras. Fred had served in the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) at Gallipoli and was badly wounded in France at Pozières in 1916. Dave’s youth was spent with access to the riparian paddocks between Darebin Creek and the Yarra River, and, as an adventurous character, he eagerly participated in the scouting movement and sport, especially cricket. Because he showed an aptitude in the physical sciences, from 1933 his parents sent him to the Melbourne Technical College Junior School.

After leaving school in 1936, Hocking began work with the civil engineering firm Woodall-Duckham Ltd as a junior draftsman. On 3 June 1940 he enlisted in the AIF for service in World War II, despite being in a reserved occupation. Serving as a trooper, he was first posted as a specialist surveyor to the 2/1st Survey Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, in Palestine, Syria and, Transjordan (May 1941–March 1942). Then he transferred to the 2/7th Survey Battery where he was posted to the advanced workshop in Papua (November 1942–November 1943), assessing positions and targets during the two-month campaign against the Japanese-held beachheads at Gona, Buna, and Sanananda. After undertaking training (February 1944–May 1945), he transferred to the 2/6th Commando Squadron, surveying for a month before the battle of Balikpapan, Borneo (May–June).

Hocking was discharged from the AIF on 6 December 1945 in Victoria and resumed his position with Woodhall-Duckham. In 1948 he joined the newly formed National Mapping Section (later known as NATMAP) of the Department of the Interior (later Division of National Mapping) as a field assistant surveyor based in Melbourne. The agency was planning a program of field surveying across remote Australia to connect geodetic work with aerial photographs taken during the war. From 1948 to 1952, as a member of survey field parties, he travelled to regions in the Northern Territory, including the Barkly Tableland; Queensland; Western Australia; and far western New South Wales. In 1951 he led a team to conduct the first postwar triangulation surveys completed by NATMAP on the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia.

At the NATMAP office Hocking had met Iris ‘Nat’ Nattrass, and they married on 12 August 1952 in West Melbourne. She had also served during the war, as a recorder and office orderly in the Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force, Air Defence Headquarters, Perth. With her ‘strong and loving support’ (Hocking 2000, 7), he focused on his own professional development. In 1953 he joined the photogrammetric section as a draftsman, then in 1966 was appointed chief draftsman in the Photogrammetric Drafting Branch. During this time, he obtained professional qualifications: a certificate of lithography from the Melbourne School of Printing and Graphic Arts (1958), and associateship diplomas in cartography (1965) and land surveying (1970) from Melbourne Technical College.

Photogrammetry played a central part in NATMAP’s mission to provide topographic map coverage of Australia at 1:100,000 scale, considered essential to Australia’s postwar rural economy, land utilisation, and settlement. The goal required NATMAP to acquire aerial photography at unprecedented levels, with a high volume of imagery supplied by a variety of commercial contractors. As head of compilation development in 1969, Hocking managed the complex photogrammetric processes of computing the aerial survey results, plotting controls, and transferring details to compilation base sheets, essential steps in the production of individual maps. Progress on the new scale was rapid, though the program was later pulled back to 1:250,000 scale for the interior of the continent, with emphasis in the 1970s on revision at the larger scale in more populated regions.

Throughout his career, Hocking was dedicated to professional organisations. He had become inaugural secretary (and later chair) of the Australian Photogrammetric Society in 1965. The new society was an important avenue for national and international initiatives, including bringing Australia into the world spatial information industry, and it played a major part in integrating spatial data within key sectors such as transport, mining, and agriculture. The following year he was admitted as a member to one of the society’s parent organisations, the Institute of Surveyors, Australia. As Australian delegate, he attended International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing conferences between 1976 and 1996, his advocacy crucial to Australian participation in ISPRS working groups. He was a member of mapping, surveying and spatial science institutes both in Australia and overseas, and advocated for closer cooperation between surveying and mapping professions. As president (1981–82) of the Australian Institute of Cartographers, he helped to facilitate the first combined Congress of Surveying and Cartography, in 1982. He served on industry bodies such as Surveying and Mapping Victoria and on the Australian Surveying and Mapping Industry Council.

After Hocking retired in 1985, his involvement with the professional community continued. He served on the committee of the Association of Aerial Surveyors Australia, finishing as executive director in 1997, before withdrawing from public life in 1998. Two years after being diagnosed with a rare disease, amyloidosis, he died on 14 November 2000 at Kew, Victoria, and was cremated. He was survived by his wife and their four daughters and three sons, and was remembered by his brother Philip for his ‘kindness and loyalty,’ ‘direct and stimulating comments and advice,’ ‘sense of humour,’ and ‘ready wit’ (Hocking 2000, 7).