M is for Misdeeds

Did Joshua Moxon come to the colonies in 1867 because he had been working on a statue of Prince Albert, Consort to Queen Victoria and accidentally chiselled his nose off, tried to cover up his mistake by glueing it back on?  

Who knows? A number of his great-grandchildren had heard the story and that it was the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, London. However, this memorial was cast in bronze and the design was not yet finalised prior to Joshua and Louisa embarking for Queensland.

In 2014, John and I visited the vibrant city of Manchester to meet up with Chris Moxon, the Moxon Society's membership secretary and his partner Philip who worked in theatre in the city.

Joshua had been found working there as a young man in 1861.  We were amazed that Manchester also had an Albert Memorial which was completed in 1865.  We realised that this could be the memorial that Joshua was working on.  It's very possible - the timeframe fits.  Again we looked at contemporary newspapers but found nothing.  The story could well be true but we would need to delve into the Lancashire Archives to check.  Sadly, it's a job for next time.......

I won't even pretend that Joshua's imprisonment for three months in 1883 was a misdeed.  This was a case of violence towards a child - his six-year-old son William.  If he'd badly beaten William, it is highly likely that he disciplined his older children and even his wife in a similar way.  Certainly, none of his children was fond of him.  It was at that time that John's grandfather Henry Percy ran away from home and from his apprenticeship.

Henry Percy Moxon later became the Mayor of a copper mining town of 3000 people called Wrightsville, six miles out of Cobar in far northwestern New South Wales.  Nothing survives of the town now.

It was during the great war when Henry (Harry Moxon) probably wished he'd kept his mouth shut.  He had reason to visit the town's community hall and came across the matrons of Wrightville knitting socks and scarves for the troops in Europe.

He made the remark that since the British King and the German Kaiser were cousins, they should have just fought their differences out between them, instead of using the youth of  Wrightville and elsewhere as cannon fodder.  

The ladies were highly insulted and complained bitterly to the Council about Harry's lack of patriotism and sought an apology from the Mayor.  Harry stubbornly refused to do so but in the end, all the Councillors turned against him and he was forced to apologise.  The local papers had a field day.

L is for Louisa Mary Wilkinson

Louisa Mary Moxon nee Wilkinson 

 Joshua Middleton Moxon and his two oldest sons all had trouble with their marriages. Each of their wives left home as their children grew up or even when they were still infants.

Louisa Mary Moxon (nee Wilkinson) was one of them. George Joshua's wife Ellen Matilda (nee Jack) left home, as did Ellen Mary Moxon (nee Egan), the wife of John's grandfather Henry Percy.

Louisa and Joshua had married in 1866 in Chelsea, London, one year before they reached Australia.  Her parents were Joseph Wilkinson, a builder and Louisa Sarah Thorpe.  They had married in Bethnal Green, London in 1843.  Their fathers were both farmers, one in Halifax, Yorkshire and the other in Great Amwell, Hertfordshire.  Louisa Mary was born in 1844 in Hackney and she had two sisters, neither of whom married.  They lived with their parents in north London.

Louisa probably thought she married "down".  Certainly, her Hertfordshire ancestors were better off - skilled builders, farmers and dressmakers and her Cheffins cousins were very well off.

On the other hand, Joshua came from a very poor family.  His parents appeared to be reliant on their relations for shelter and his mother died a pauper laundress in Barnsley, a Yorkshire mining town.

In 1883, she was pregnant once more, after giving birth to twins the year before - both twins died within a week.  This was her tenth pregnancy.  It is thought she went to stay at first with George Joshua in either Auburn or Parramatta and re-established herself as a dressmaker.  Her child-caring responsibilities were much reduced; her only daughter, Edith aged nine would have gone with her and later the new baby Ernest Edward Victor. She left all the boys at Hailey Farm while the youngest boy, Alfred (born 1880) was taken away by the governess. Louisa would have taught Edith to sew.  Edith later suggested she was simply her mother's "drudge".

In 1887, Louisa had her last child, Susan Mary Moxon.  It is unclear whether she was Joshua's child.  Susan was born in Auburn, according to her death certificate, although her birth certificate cannot be found.

Louisa was living in Pymont in 1892 when young Ernest died, at 100 Albion Street,  in 1907 and in Cleveland Street, Surry Hills in 1910.  She outlived Joshua by nearly 30 years.  It is thought that John's father Bert (1902-1987) lived with her when he was young.  The story is that he was left in Sydney when he accompanied his mother whilst she was giving birth in 1906 and that when it was time to return to Cobar, he was five and needed a non-affordable ticket. He stayed in Sydney for ten years living with first his grandmother and then with Susan Mary. This seems far fetched because Bert's father would have been in Sydney from time to time as Mayor of Wrightville near Cobar.

The only photo we have of Louisa is of a very very stern-looking woman in her 80s.  Susan Mary was looking after her in old age.  She died at Little Bay, probably in Prince Henry hospital on 10th July 1923 aged 79.

K is for kindred

John Moxon x2, Zoe, Heather and Margaret

Family  history research is full of delights.  The thrill of adding another generation, the excitement of a new surname to follow and the satisfaction of finding the DNA matches do confirm our paper records.  That yes, we do have the right Tucker or Moxon family.  

We can weave stories around our ancestors, their houses and villages.  We may prove or shatter family stories handed down over generations. We can collect or recognise memorabilia.

But for John and myself, a bonus has been making new friends.

Rediscovering cousins after 40 years of lost contact and making many new friends amongst second or third or first cousins twice removed has been a wonderful experience for John and me.  Meeting face to face, attending organised or spontaneous family reunions and growing those friendships via Facebook, email and The Moxon Society membership has been wonderful, especially for those of us who are retirees.

In recent years, John and I have travelled to Stuart Town where John's grandfather's brother Alfred (Wilson) Moxon settled and met his Orange-based descendants; visited Leura to meet his favourite first cousin, the late Wendy Lou Walker and some of her family; reconnected with his youngest first cousin Denise and her girls; reconnected with his uncle John Peter Moxon for a few years before his recent death at 97; travelled to the Central Coast and Coffs Harbour to meet second cousins descended from George Joshua Moxon and to Lake Macquarie to meet descendants of Arthur Moxon, George Joshua's younger brother.

And we've had two unexpected phone calls from other cousins just exploring their Moxon roots.  The first in 2011 was Shirley, a second cousin, whose father was George Joshua Moxon's oldest son.  We met her later the same year in Coffs Harbour. 

The second phone call resulted from a referral by one of our non-related Moxon friends in our capacity as co-ordinators of Moxons Down Under.  "Margaret will be able to work out what Moxon tree she came from", said Douglas who she found on Facebook.  Her mother, a Moxon had died when she was just four years old after giving birth to twins.

It was Christmas night 2015: I answered the phone and she poured out her story.  I immediately placed her in Joshua Middleton Moxon’s tree and therefore related to us.  Towards the end of a 90 minute conversation, I said Do you know that you have an aunt two years younger than you?  Would you like me to tell her your story and put you in touch?  The two women, both in their 70s met each other within a couple of months when we organised a reunion in Stuart Town in 2016.  Both women are now members of The Moxon Society and have enjoyed a short cruise together.  The niece and her brother have now met many Moxon cousins and they feel warmly welcomed into the family. 

Most of us, young and old stay in touch on Facebook in a private group for members of the Joshua Middleton Moxon family.  

J is for Joshua Middleton Moxon

Pitt Street facade carvings

 The founder of a large dynasty of Moxons - not that he knew it at the time - Joshua Moxon appears to have assumed his mother's maiden name of Middleton as his second name when he reached Sydney.  Was he determined to make a new start, keen to create a new persona for himself now that in 1867 he had a wife and baby son and the possibility of purchasing land if he could find good-paying work with his stone carving skills?   Moving to working-class Balmain, within reach of a variety of new sandstone building projects, he

entered a competition to demonstrate his craftsmanship. He entered a carved cap in Sydney's very first Metropolitan inter-colonial Exhibition, run by the Agricultural Society of NSW.  The Exhibition was opened on 30 August 1870 in Prince Alfred Park.  It seems that this event morphed into what we now know as the Sydney Royal Easter Show.

Joshua's cap won a commendation.

Even when he purchased 130 acres of land at Bankstown and moved his fast-growing family there between 1872-1883, he continued to undertake contracts for stone carving and building.  Some of his significant work can be seen in the following buildings:

• Mortuary Stations at Redfern and Haslem's Creek (Rookwood) where he did the decorative carvings (1868-1870).  The latter station was later moved to Ainslie in the ACT where it is now All Saint's Church.
• Sydney General Post Office where he started off caring some "ornament of appropriate character" for the roof, but later he was tasked with sculpturing the figures representing various industries on the Pitt Street facade of the GPO.  This work was very controversial.  Many Sydney residents conveyed outrage and uproar about using "common" people as models, rather than the more traditional figures from antiquity.
• Woolloomooloo Police Lockup where he successfully tendered for the building contract in 1878.  In 1937, this building was the venue for the first Police Boys' Club in New South Wales.  The building was demolished in 1959.
• Darlinghurst Court House.  Joshua was awarded the contract to build additions in 1884 and they were commissioned for use in 1886.

Joshua also became a considerable property owner and developer and invested in mining leases.  In 1894, he died intestate aged only 54.  His oldest son George was given executor responsibilities but lawyers were still dealing with probate issues 12 years later.  Certainly none of his children became wealthy as a result and neither were any of them as much of a risk taker as Joshua.  There were many parallels with Charles Dicken’s Bleak House in Joshua’s story.

I is for Ireland

Both Moxon and Moxham are English surnames, from Yorkshire and Wiltshire respectively, so it was perhaps unusual to find that one prominent family of Moxhams in Australia had its documented roots in Ireland.

Y DNA tests have shown that the Australian descendants of the Longford Moxhams match a descendant of the Moxhams in Wiltshire.  It is thought that a Moxham was "planted" in Ireland to increase the population of Irish Protestants in the mid-1600s and were given land by the British King.  They cannot have been very popular with the Catholic majority!

In 1835, a  Richard Robert Moxham (1814-1865) from Longford, Ireland immigrated with his wife Frances, nee Mack and established his family at Parramatta.  He became a turnkey at Parramatta Gaol.

Whilst Richard Moxham had only one son and two daughters, that son had many sons.

Later, his much younger brother Henry Charles John Moxham (1832-1898) arrived, however, it is not clear when he immigrated.  He began operating a punt across the river at Wagga Wagga in 1854.  He married Susannah Hannah Ceasar Monkhouse nee Seymour who was a widow with two young daughters.  He acquired land in the district and subsequently engaged in pastoral pursuits, including at one time owning Mimosa station.  He fathered many children with Susannah including several boys. He also lived at Bourke, becoming well known there as well.

Both brothers, sons of William Moxham and Susannah Pope prospered in New South Wales.  However, they had started their adult lives as farm labourers but obviously had plenty of motivation to do well in the colony.  

In 1850, their uncle Henry Moxham (1795-1870, known as Henry Snr) and his wife, his second cousin Mary Ann Moxham (1800-1893) emigrated to Parramatta with his large family on the ship Elizabeth as assisted passengers. He was described as a farm labourer too but may well have had good connections in the colony. However, he may have inherited money from his deceased parents which enabled him to purchase considerable land holdings in the North Parramatta, Northmead and Baulkham Hills areas - the area your author has lived most of her life.  Other Moxhams moved further west to Penrith.

Henry Snr's family established a number of sandstone quarries in the area, evidence of which is still highly visible today.  They owned a still-standing sandstone cottage on the corner of Windsor Road and Churchill Drive at Northmead and another, now demolished house on the corner of Factory Street. It became the Coach Inn but was demolished in the 1970s to make way for a large restaurant.   There are still many sandstone cottages along Windsor Road sourced from the Moxham quarries.  Additionally, these quarries supplied much of the sandstone needed for many Parramatta buildings.

In 2006, a large reunion was organised at Northmead Public School and 130 descendants and family members attended.  It was noted that a Moxham had attended the school every year since it opened.  Certainly these three early Moxhams established considerable dynasties.

Thomas Robert Moxham (1858-1916), a grandson of Henry Moxham Snr was the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) representing Parramatta for continuous terms between 1901 and his death in 1916.  He was a Liberal Party whip from 1913 to 1916.  He was a pastoralist and property owner and one of the two brothers who established the quarry at Northmead.  His father Robert Henry Moxon was the keeper of the Toll Bar at the time of his birth.  

Prior to entering Parliament, he was an alderman and mayor of Parramatta (1897-1901).

The Moxham name is still very prominent around the Parramatta area.  John Moxham, educated at The Kings's School established a well-known Parramatta real estate business in 1960.  He sold it in 2006 and is now semi-retired.

Your author is currently the guardian of this tree.  Much research was undertaken by Sharon Lowry of Adelaide about 15 years ago and sent to the Moxon Society, but Sharon is no longer actively involved.  Since the Australian branch is so large, I should be actively seeking out members of this family who are interested in family research and encourage them to join.

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.