Q is for Queensland

T.F. Moxon's house in Toowong

The Brisbane Moxons were horrified.

William Ernest Moxon and his brother Thomas Frank Moxon had followed their older brother, an Anglican priest to Queensland in 1887 and immediately set about establishing successful businesses in coastal shipping and later the timber industry.  By the time T.F. died in 1936, he was the owner of a large group of companies.  Meanwhile W.E. was headhunted by the Adelaide Steamship Company and worked in Western Australia and then back in Brisbane by 1918.

As the 1920s progressed, they began to hear more about a much younger namesake,  H.J. Moxon who was stirring up trouble on the waterfront from Cairns to Brisbane and further south.  A hothead if ever there was one, a Communist no less.

By this time Bert (Herbert John) Moxon was becoming one of Queensland’s dynamic leaders, working with J B Miles to consolidate and build branches in Brisbane and North Queensland.  He worked to prevent a merger with the Labor Party in 1924   He was sent to Moscow in 1928 to attend meetings of the Third Comintern. 

It was also during this time that Bert Moxon was advised to “get out of Cairns quickly”, only later learning that another person had been killed and found floating in the harbour (and incorrectly identified as Bert Moxon).

He also became a central figure in the lead up to the 1929 Queensland election by having “left” candidates successfully stand against Labor Party candidates.

There was no way that the other Moxon family wanted to be associated with Bert,

In the Brisbane Courier on 24 July 1928, the following public notice appeared:

Mr W.E. Moxon (Queensland Manager for the Adelaide Steamship Co. Ltd, Brisbane) who is well known in shipping and mercantile circles desires it to be known that he is not related to Mr. H.J. Moxon, who represented the Central Executive of the Communist Party of Australia in Soviet Russia recently, and who is now in Brisbane.

These days, descendants of the two different families (MX05 and MX27 trees in The Moxon Society) are friends on Facebook and have met each other socially.  The Sydney descendants of each family also went to Fort Street Boys High School.