Y is for Yorkie Jim

 

Keelmen heaving coal by night

When a potential member with the surname Moxon from Wagga Wagga rang us to enquire about the Moxon Society in 2014 and said his ancestors settled in Sofala, a goldmining area near Bathurst, NSW, I immediately assumed that he was related to a large Moxon family descended from early settlers Robert and Sarah Moxon from Stewkley, Cambridgeshire.  That couplde settled in Bathurst in 1849, and members Matt McGrath and David Michael are just two of their descendants.

That tree used to be called MX11, but it has now been incorporated into MX01.

But I quickly discovered that this new member's tree bore no links to our "Bathurst" Moxons.

His grandparents were Henry James Moxon (1867-1939) and Emily Burton (1872-1931).  Henry was born in Sofala, the third of nine children born in New South Wales to James Moxon (1829-1903) and Sophia J. Stafford (?-1902).  They had married in Sofala in 1861.

Our new member's grandfather moved to Tamworth after the gold rushes and became a butcher, whilst other members of the family moved to Crookwell where Sophia Stafford had lived.

James was known to his descendants as "Yorkie Jim", another reason to doubt the link to the Stewkley Moxons.  It seems that this was a contemporary nickname since there are newspaper articles mentioning this.

James Moxon was baptised in 1829 in Hatfield, Yorkshire, the son of James Moxon and Elizabeth Lockwood.  He was a member of a family of keelmen who spent generations on the Yorkshire rivers and canals beteen Sheffield, Stainforth, Thorne and Hull.  Many later settled in Hull or Sculcoates.

The following is paraphrased from this website http://www.stainforthonline.co.uk/2001/canal_keel_families.htm#Moxon.

Here is an extract from that site:

Families associated with the Stainforth Waterside 1800-1930

It seems many visitors to this site are interested in their family origins, especially those whose ancestors were keel folk and canal folk.

This is a list of names and details I have come across while searching for information about the canal and the people who lived there at the turn of the 19th century.  This list had come from various sources, including Fred Schofield's book, "Humber Keels and Keelmen."

Moxon

I don't have much information about the Moxon family, other than they lived and worked on Stainforth's waterside.

Christine Hemsworth: The Moxon's are associated with Stainforth from way back and are mariners.  Some lived in Thorne but there are plenty of them on the census returns right back to 1851 and probably before, there are some in the cemetry there.  They, along with the other oldies, the Hinchcliffe and the Shirtliffes, were sail makers and all intermarried at some point.  You find children such as Alsop Moxon and Hasting Hinchcliffe keeping the two names together.  In Thorne cemetery you can walk around the graves and you can pick out the ones with anchors on them.

And interesting, our new members Moxon family can be linked to the family of a John Moxon whose sons moved from Thorne to Hull by the 1860s and established a Humber Keel business.

The common ancestor of the Wagga Wagga Moxons and the George Moxon in Hull are John Moxon (c1772-1853) who married Mary Shilloto (1776-1850) from Thorne in Yorkshire.

John Moxon is described as a waterman in the 1841 census.  In 1851 he was described as a retired mariner, living with his son Matthew, also a waterman.

There is an item in the Moxon Magazine Issue 13, April 1994 which explores more recent history of this family.

And as an aside, there appears to be no link between this family and the Moxons of Hull from whom Septimus Moxon (see S is for Septimus) is descended.

The painting above is by J. M. W. Turner - ArtDaily.org, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18736905