H is for Hailey Farm

Hailey Hall Farm c 1900

Joshua Middleton Moxon and his wife Louisa did not stay in Queensland in 1867 when they arrived on the Samarang with toddler George Joshua.  At the time, the Queensland colony was offering land grants to convince settlers from the British Isles to stay rather than migrate to the south and to the goldfields and building sites.  However, Joshua wasn't tempted.

Louisa was six months pregnant with her second child when they first sighted Queensland but by November the same year, she gave birth to William John (1867-1868) in Balmain, New South Wales.  Two more children, including John Bruce Moxon's grandfather Henry Percy (1869-1950) were born there.

In 1871 the family moved from Balmain to Bankstown, at that stage a farming community without a school or many other facilities.  Joshua bought a farm of about 130 acres and named it Hailey Farm, although it was often recorded in newspapers and official records as Harley Farm.  Bankstown Railway Station and the Centro Shopping Centre are now within the boundaries of Joshua's farm.  Hailey Farm would now be cut through by both the railway line and busy Stacey Street.

In 1876, Joshua advertised his property for the agistment of horses and cattle for 1s 3d per week.  His closest neighbour was Joseph Stacey, also a stonemason and farmer.  However, they weren't the best of friends because Stacey accused Moxon of allowing his goats to wander onto Stacey's orchard that same year.  Court action was taken but neither party was satisfied with the result.

So was it Hailey Farm or Harley Farm?

It became obvious that it was Hailey Farm when we researched Louisa's childhood.  Although born and married in London, Louisa spent much of her childhood in the fresh country air of Hertfordshire.  Her mother had been a Thorpe and her grandmother's name was Cheffins.  Both families were deeply rooted in the Hoddesdon/ Broxbourne area.  She learnt to sew with her Thorpe maiden aunts, one of who was living at Hailey Hall Farm, leased in the 1850s and 60s by her great uncle Peter Cheffins.  Louisa was living there in 1861, aged about 16 and in 1851 she was living with her aunts in her mother's ancestral town of Hoddesdon - still a very pleasant area.  No doubt her childhood memories were precious.  Life in Hackney in London's east end would have been far less healthy.

The family lived at Hailey Farm at Bankstown for about 11 years.  After Louisa left home without the children three of the youngest boys - Herbert, William and Arthur - were sent to the Randwick Institute for Destitute Children and either fostered out by the Benevolent Society or remained there until Joshua considered them old enough to work.  By the 1890s, Louisa had relocated to Surry Hills where she used her dressmaking skills to earn a living, although she did live for a time at South Head at a property owned by Joshua with two of her daughters.

G is for George Joshua Moxon

George Joshua Moxon and family

When George Joshua Moxon arrived in Queensland on 17th August 1867 on the Samarang with his parents Joshua and Louisa Moxon (nee Wilkinson), he would have been just 16 months old.  A dangerous age for a sea voyager!  He probably learnt to walk on the ship.  He had been born in Pimlico, London on 6th April 1866.

George was the oldest of 14 children born to Louisa Mary Moxon, nee Wilkinson and her husband Joshua Middleton Moxon.  Sadly, only eight of the siblings survived till adulthood.  The youngest was Susan Mary Moxon and it is unclear whether she was Joshua's child.  A number of his siblings died in infancy and one in tragic circumstances in childhood, well after George had left home and married and had children of his own.

George may have been named after his father's cousin George Moakson (1799-1864) who was also a stonemason and builder.  His father Joshua (1840-1894) lived with that George's mother Elizabeth Robinson and her husband Thomas Robinson, also a stonemason, in the 1840s and 50s.

Building and stonemasonry were in George's DNA but it is unclear how much time if any he spent working in those fields. He was described as a stonemason both on his probate record in 1940 and when he administered his father's estate in 1895, but he was variously described as a fruitier and a van proprietor.  His father Joshua was a stonemason who probably met his mother through work.  Her father, Joseph Wilkinson was a successful builder in London but hailed from a line of builders and stonemasons in Halifax, Yorkshire.  Joshua too was born and raised in Yorkshire, but in Barnsley. 

George left home well before some of his siblings were born.  His father, although a hard-working stonemason, carver and builder was certainly not a good father.  It is likely that George did not get on well with him since Joshua had a very cruel streak and was gaoled in 1883 for beating George's six-year-old brother William and another brother, 14-year-old Henry Percy (Harry) ran away from his home and apprenticeship.  His pregnant mother Louisa also left home and may have gone to stay with George for some time, since at least one of her youngest children was born in the same suburb the year George married in 1887.

It would not have been an easy childhood for George Joshua, especially when his father bought a 200-acre farm at Bankstown in 1872 but continued to work as a stonemason and carver.  Louisa - often pregnant - and her oldest children would have been expected to care for the animals and vegetable crops on a day to day basis.

George married Ellen Matilda Jack in 1887 at the Baptist church in Parramatta.  He was just 21 and she was five years older.  The following year, whilst living in Victoria Street, Auburn he and Ellen welcomed their first child, George Jack Moxon.

They were to have six more children - Edith Mary Matilda (1890-1940), Herbert Percy (1891-1962), William Henry (1893-1970), Rupert Middleton (1895-1968), Miriam Martha Lily (1896-1940) and Harold (1899-).  Nothing more is known of Harold so he might have died young.  George Joshua eventually had 14 grandchildren although, having died in 1940 he did not know the youngest, Shirley or Dulcie.

George was politically active and like many other Moxons was prominent in a variety of organisations.  In 1912 he was a founding director of the Eastern Suburbs Workmen's Club.   In 1918 he was a board member of the Sydney United Friendly Societies' Dispensary Medical Institute.   In 1929 he was the president of the Merrylands A.L.P and stood for election at Holroyd Council as a Labor candidate.  In 1931, his political opponents included his nephew Herbert John Moxon (John Bruce Moxon's father) and a few choice words were exchanged at political rallies.  Herbert J (Bert) was a member of the Communist Party prior to being expelled in 1932. 

By 1903 George and Ellen were living at Cowper Street, Waverley.  At some stage, Ellen Matilda left George and was living with other family members, including offspring living in Melbourne.  The studio photo above looks like it was taken about 1906 when Miriam was about ten.  The message I read into this is that Ellen had already left.  Ellen died in Melbourne, a widow in 1943 and was buried there.

In 1929, George was described by the Truth (a disreputable Sydney newspaper) as a short, red-faced, grey-haired man of 62 well-known in the Merrylands area. The article described a domestic assault upon George by the sons-in-law of his housekeeper, Lucy Spinks. Some of Mrs Spinks' relations wanted to move into George's house, but he was having none of it.  All three younger men were arrested and charged but only one was fined.

George Joshua died in Merrylands, New South Wales in 1940. Descendants of this branch of the Joshua Middleton Moxon family appear to have remained close or rediscovered each other by the beginning of the 20th century, but there appears to be no such ongoing connection between George Joshua and his siblings after the 1880s.  They and their descendants were soon scattered throughout New South Wales.

A note from the author:  I am now running two days late with my blog challenge because I was vaccinated against Covid-19 on Wednesday but had a very bad reaction.  Nevertheless, I am keenly awaiting my second dose on 1 July since I'd rather have a couple of days in bed than deal with the coronavirus and its possible consequences.  I hope to catch up quickly.

F is for Fort Street High School

In 1849, the Governor of the colony of New South Wales established a model school on the site of an old military fort at Observatory Hill in Sydney, the first of a system of national or non-sectarian schools. It was named Fort Street school. It was designed for all children of school age. By 1911, the school was split into one primary school remaining on-site and separate boys' and girls' high schools. The boys were moved to a new site at Taverner's Hill, on the Parramatta Road at Petersham whilst the girls remained at the newly named Fort Street Girls High at Observatory Hill. This structure remained until 1975 when the two high schools were combined into a co-educational school at Taverner's Hill.

The school has always been a selective academic high school and students were encouraged to matriculate.  Some very famous Australians - prime ministers, governors-general, high court judges and captains of industry have attended Fort Street High.

As well as the not-so-famous.  Like families with the Moxon surname. John's father Herbert John Moxon had five sisters who were brought to the city from distant Cobar at the end of World War. His cousin Denise, a member of the Moxon Society

confirmed that her mother Johanna Margaret Moxon (1913-1986) attended the school and matriculated in 1931.  Denise and John both thought that at least some of her older sisters did too.  Certainly, they became teachers, actors, publishers' assistants as well as being politically active.

So John and Denise's grandmother Ellen Mary (nee Egan) had a completely different approach to education than her cousin in law Herbert Percy (Bert) Moxon as you will see below.

In the late 20s, May Fowler (nee Moxon)'s story about A beautiful Moxon in the April 2021 issue of the Moxon Magazine (no 67) noted that her father, Edgar Herbert Moxon (1915-1950) won a scholarship to Fort Street Boys High.  However, his father Bert believed that "a man wasn't worth anything unless he worked with his hands" and Edgar was denied the opportunity to attend the school.  Instead, he was sent out west to work on farms.

In 1940, John Bruce Moxon's sister Bette attended Fort Street Girls HS but her education there was interrupted for 18 months when her parents decided to leave the city for the Blue Mountains.  When they returned to Sydney, Bette was encouraged to return to the school but sadly, she felt overwhelmed and left behind academically, so this very smart now 92 years old joined the workforce instead of matriculating.

In the 1950s, Bette's much younger brother, John Bruce Moxon attended the school at Taverner's Hill from 1951-1954 but left halfway through 4th year because he felt he didn't fit in. With the insight of his later years, he believes he was too immature for his age, unlike others in his class such as former high court judge Michael Kirby. He made no lasting friendships amongst his schoolmates.  He didn't matriculate and obtain a degree until he was in his 40s, having followed the apprenticeship vocational route in his youth.

In the 60s, brothers Douglas and Geoff Moxon attended Fort Street.  Unlike the other Moxons mentioned in this blog, they are no relation to John.  However, they are our good friends on Facebook and in the Moxon Society.  Their ancestry is found in the Moxon Society Tree MX05 whereas John, Bette and Edgar feature in MX27.

And there is still more - in the 1970s, when the school became co-educational, John's son Bruce Robert Moxon attended Fort Street High School.  Unlike John, he has remained good friends with many of his classmates and they hold regular reunions.

We are not aware of any other Moxon families at the school but there may have been some, as well as some students with the Moxham surname.

However, you may not believe this:  a few years ago, as one of the "very old boys" at a school speech day, John was invited to morning tea by the current school principal, a Ms Moxham!

E is for Ernest Edward Victor Moxon

Jones and Pyrmont Bays quarries in 1886

As a stonemason, John Bruce Moxon's great grandfather, Joshua Middleton Moxon spent his life cutting, carving and erecting sandstone for which the Sydney basin is reknown.  In the 1870s and 80s, the source of much of this sandstone was the Ultimo area of inner Sydney. 

These quarries are described in Lost Sydney  The Jones quarry shown on the left was within close walking distance from where the Moxon family lived in 1892.

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Thursday March 31, 1892, the following sad story was printed.

"The City Coroner held an inquest yesterday in the Native Youth Hotel, Pyrmont, upon the body of Ernest Edward Victor Moxon, who died partly from concussion of the brain and partly from asphyxia by drowning, the result of having accidently fallen down the face of a quarry, a distance of about 40 ft or 45 ft, into water below.  Deceased resided with his parents at 8 Agnes-terrace, Murray-street, Pyrmont, and was eight years of age.  He attended the Ultimo Public School, and on Monday at a quarter past 6 o’clock in the evening, while passing along the top of the quarry near the school, he was seen by another boy to fall over the precipice. He fell on to a plank near where some children were floating another plank.  The children’s plank struck that upon which deceased was lying, and deceased rolled into the water.  The children then became frightened and ran away, and said nothing of the observance until the following morning.  A watchman on the Darling Harbour railway station recovered the body on Tuesday morning, and haded it to Senior-constable McCrimmon.  The jury returned a verdict of accidental death."

Although Joshua and Louisa lost quite a number of children in infancy, little Ernest Edward Victor Moxon was one who survived.  He was the baby who was born after his mother Louisa Mary Moxon left Hailey Farm under acrimonious circumstances in 1883.  Louisa had two more children born in 1885 and 1887, both given the surname Moxon, so it may be likely that Louisa and Joshua re-united.  We are yet to find out through a DNA test of descendants of one of those children, Susan Mary Moxon born 1887.

D is for DNA

Margaret's DNA test results

Of course it is!  Where would we baby boomer retirees with time to indulge in family history research be without it?

Certainly a lot worse off than my mother Freda Tucker, who had joined two local historical societies in the 1960s after the worst of her child-rearing years were behind her.  This led in turn to an interest in family history, and as soon as the word spread to her mother's large adoptive family in Victoria, she began getting requests from cousins to seek out certain records at the NSW Archives, at that time located in the centre of Sydney.

I retired from full-time work in 2002 and by 2005 began to research my family as well as my husband's Moxon family.  Fortunately, he was just as interested as I was, but still working until 2008 when we started travelling overseas.

I had a lucky start: my mother had recorded what she knew of her Kentish birth mother and her journey to a new life in Sydney prior to Freda's birth in 1912.  My mother also strongly suggested to my father that "if you must wander around the house in the middle of the night because you can't sleep, why don't you record your life memories?"  So he did.

John had an older cousin who had started researching their Moxon family history in the early 80s and wrote to all her known Moxon relations - and some she was introduced to - to find out what they knew.  Bless you, the late Dr Wendy Lou Walker whose mother was a Moxon.  She was thus able to build a large tree of distant cousins, uncles and aunts.

 Unfortunately, when she obtained their great grand-father Joshua Middleton Moxon's death certificate, she pursued the wrong line for his father.  Certainly not Wendy's fault - the witness was his housekeeper who in 1894 had identified the wrong names for both his parents. It was Joshua who had established the Moxon family we knew in Australia.  His shipping record noted the small family of three arrived via Queensland in 1867 from London.  Ultimately, Wendy was able to find that Joshua's parents were Isaac Moxon/Moakson and Sarah Middleton.  Thank you Joshua for adding your mother's maiden name to your plain baptismal name.  It probably sounded more entrepreneurial, which was of course his aim.

A more distant cousin, Edward (Ted) Moxon whom we eventually met post-retirement had also undertaken extensive research, particularly regarding later generations.  His energetic research was very helpful for John's tree.  Ted was a longtime member of The Moxon Society and his sister May Anne Fowler is currently a very enthusiastic member who enjoys contributing stories.

By 2008, building on and checking via online records, John and I were able to start adding family stories, some of which sounded fanciful.  How could we verify some of this information?

One Moxon story was intriguing.  In 1883, the large family of Joshua Middleton Moxon imploded.  He was gaoled for three months; his pregnant wife left home; John's grandfather Harry left home at 14, breaking his apprenticeship to his father; a housekeeper left with three-year-old Alfred Moxon and changed his surname; the family was mourning the death of twins the year before.

Years later, Harry found his young brother Alf at Stuart Town in the central west.  The story was handed down in two distant Moxon branches that a rat had eaten Alf's toes and that was how Harry had identified him.  However, when the large family of Moxons gathered at Stuart Town for a reunion about 2011, Alf's son, Cecil Moxon stated that his father's toes were intact and laughed off the rat story.  It is more likely that Harry recognised Alf's adoptive "mother" in Wellington, near Stuart Town, NSW.  Alf had married in 1909 as Alf Wilson.  Later his marriage certificate was changed to Moxon.

So how did we prove that Alf really was that three-year-old child who had disappeared - some saying to Wellington in New Zealand?

Through DNA of course.  My husband John and various descendants of Alf Wilson/Moxon shared strong autosomal DNA, making them second cousins, or second cousins once or twice removed.

Additionally, members of the Society in England, Australia, America, Canada and New Zealand have been generously sharing their AncestryDNA with two Moxon Society committee members in England, Graham Jagger and Philip Lord.  This allows female members of the Society and those who have female Moxons in their ancestry to contribute their DNA, not just those male Moxon members who match on their Y-DNA.  The autosomal research has been a much more recent development since about 2015 when many English and Australians were enabled to test through AncestryDNA.

As a result, the numerous Moxon and Moxham trees for which the paper trail stalled were able to be reviewed and many trees were combined.

C is for Convicts

 In earlier years, I have written eight posts about Moxon/ Moxan/ Moxham/ Moxom convicts transported to the colonies of New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land. Strangely enough, I have found - so far - that just ONE of these convicts established a family dynasty in Australia.  This is the Moxom family of Victoria and New South Wales which I mentioned yesterday in my post about Robert Moxon of Bathurst.  His brother "William Moxon/Moxham, convict 1842, Tortoise" established the "Moxom" family.

Many of these convicts died without death certificates that are discoverable in New South Wales.  At least one of them did marry.  John Moxon, Lord Sidmouth, 1819, married Suzannah Blue, daughter of the very famous Billy Blue, after whom Blue's Point was named.  However, by 1834 she had married George Lavender, after whom another bay in Port Jackson was named (after originally being called Moxom's Bay).

Thomas Moxham, a Third Fleet (Matilda, 1791), the first namesake to reach these shores did marry and produce children.  One died in infancy and is buried in the first cemetery in 1798. A son, another John Moxon was born in 1806 to Thomas and his wife Maria McNally, an Irish convict.  He certainly survived and settled on the McDonald River near the Hawkesbury River but there is no indication that he married.

However, despite no record of descendants of most of these convicts, a number of them left families in England or Ireland.  Jacob Moxon, a former soldier in Dublin who died before completing his sentence left a wife and family in the UK. The family may have returned to Jacob's birthplace in Yorkshire.

The earlier mentioned Thomas Moxham (Moakson) from Silkstone left a wife, Mary Garside and two infant sons in Yorkshire.  One child died before Thomas left England, but the other - another Thomas (1786-1824) married Sarah Sleigh (1788-1873) and created an English Moxon sub-branch of the Moxon Society's "Moxons of Silkstone - MX27" tree.

William Moxon (Tortoise 1842) left a family of five surviving children of his marriage to Elizabeth Emerton in Stewkley, Buckinghamshire.  He also had four stepchildren to his second wife, widow Hannah Chandler. 

So it is clear that there are descendants of Australian colonial convicts all over the world, not just in Australia - probably mostly in England!

It is now considered - at least in Australia - to be an honour to have a convict in the family.  Whilst my husband John Bruce Moxon does not have direct Moxon convicts to boast about or cover-up, he has claimed two - James Bruce (1791-1874), a convict on the Surry(2) 1831, convicted for life for burglary and Peter Colgan (Callaghan), an Irish convict from County Meath, convicted for highway robbery.

Two of John's Egan ancestors - Irish free settlers who were his 2x great grandfather and great grandfather - were convicted for perjury and sent to gaol for three years each.  And the latter's brother John Egan, for whom they gave a false alibi was convicted for bushranging, given a sentence of 14 years and sent into exile to San Francisco after seven years with no permission to return.

Member Mary Moxham's free settler ancestor (The Society's tree "Moxhams of Ebbesbourne Wake - MX37" - John Moxham (1795-1870) - migrated to New South Wales from Dorset in 1849.  He picked a fight with a fellow shell collector in the Hunter district and was convicted for violent assault and sentenced to 12 month's gaol.  This incident is described in the Moxon Down Under Newsletter No 11, 2018.

We are lucky in many ways to have convicts - whether convicted and sentenced in Australia or the British Isles - in our families because unless we have aristocratic roots, our families are not well documented.

B is for Bathurst

In 1849, Robert Muxon (or Moxon, born 1811) and his wife Sarah (nee Crawley, born 1814) of Stewkley, Buckinghamshire migrated to New South Wales, coincidentally on the Sarah.  By 1849, they had five surviving children including a daughter born at sea.  Two more sons were registered in Bathurst in 1853 and 1855.  The family settled at Wattle Flat, a gold mining area near Bathurst where Robert died in 1894.  The family has many descendants around Australia including many still living in the Bathurst area.  Others moved to Western Australia around the beginning of the 20th century and their descendants include a current politician in the WA Parliament who is a loyal member of The Moxon Society.

More information about the Wattle Flat goldfields - very near Sofala - is available in a book by Eve Buscombe.

A young Clint Moxon, a talented district cricketer is often featured in the Bathurst newspapers.  The Bathurst showground includes a Noel Moxon grandstand.  This was moved from Ashfield in Sydney a number of decades ago.  A Dr Frank P. Moxon joined the United States Army Medical Corps and like many other Bathurst born Moxons, served in the First World War.

So Robert Moxon, born 1811 was the head of a very large family of Moxons in New South Wales and Western Australia.  However, less well-known is that his elder brother William Moxon (aka Moxham and Moxom, born about 1801) was sent to Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania) on the Tortoise in 1842.  He had stolen a sheep and it was his second offence, having earlier stolen a turnip.

William had married twice in Stewkley and already had a family there, but in 1853 he married another convict, Mary Hurst from Yorkshire.  This was generally permissible when convicts were either unable to return to their homeland.  William and Mary already had a son William (born 1852).

In 1853, the small family sailed to Victoria from Launceston under the name Moxom and their many descendants in Victoria and New South Wales still use the variant name Moxom.  At various times, members of this family have been members of The Moxon Society.

Many members of this family also served during both world wars.

William and Robert were at least third-generation members of a family of Muxon/Muckson/Moxons established in Stewkley, Buckinghamshire but DNA has recently proved they are descendants of the much larger Moxon Society tree "Moxons of Cawthorne, Yorkshire - MX01".