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.