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.