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.