L is for Louisa Mary Wilkinson

Louisa Mary Moxon nee Wilkinson 

 Joshua Middleton Moxon and his two oldest sons all had trouble with their marriages. Each of their wives left home as their children grew up or even when they were still infants.

Louisa Mary Moxon (nee Wilkinson) was one of them. George Joshua's wife Ellen Matilda (nee Jack) left home, as did Ellen Mary Moxon (nee Egan), the wife of John's grandfather Henry Percy.

Louisa and Joshua had married in 1866 in Chelsea, London, one year before they reached Australia.  Her parents were Joseph Wilkinson, a builder and Louisa Sarah Thorpe.  They had married in Bethnal Green, London in 1843.  Their fathers were both farmers, one in Halifax, Yorkshire and the other in Great Amwell, Hertfordshire.  Louisa Mary was born in 1844 in Hackney and she had two sisters, neither of whom married.  They lived with their parents in north London.

Louisa probably thought she married "down".  Certainly, her Hertfordshire ancestors were better off - skilled builders, farmers and dressmakers and her Cheffins cousins were very well off.

On the other hand, Joshua came from a very poor family.  His parents appeared to be reliant on their relations for shelter and his mother died a pauper laundress in Barnsley, a Yorkshire mining town.

In 1883, she was pregnant once more, after giving birth to twins the year before - both twins died within a week.  This was her tenth pregnancy.  It is thought she went to stay at first with George Joshua in either Auburn or Parramatta and re-established herself as a dressmaker.  Her child-caring responsibilities were much reduced; her only daughter, Edith aged nine would have gone with her and later the new baby Ernest Edward Victor. She left all the boys at Hailey Farm while the youngest boy, Alfred (born 1880) was taken away by the governess. Louisa would have taught Edith to sew.  Edith later suggested she was simply her mother's "drudge".

In 1887, Louisa had her last child, Susan Mary Moxon.  It is unclear whether she was Joshua's child.  Susan was born in Auburn, according to her death certificate, although her birth certificate cannot be found.

Louisa was living in Pymont in 1892 when young Ernest died, at 100 Albion Street,  in 1907 and in Cleveland Street, Surry Hills in 1910.  She outlived Joshua by nearly 30 years.  It is thought that John's father Bert (1902-1987) lived with her when he was young.  The story is that he was left in Sydney when he accompanied his mother whilst she was giving birth in 1906 and that when it was time to return to Cobar, he was five and needed a non-affordable ticket. He stayed in Sydney for ten years living with first his grandmother and then with Susan Mary. This seems far fetched because Bert's father would have been in Sydney from time to time as Mayor of Wrightville near Cobar.

The only photo we have of Louisa is of a very very stern-looking woman in her 80s.  Susan Mary was looking after her in old age.  She died at Little Bay, probably in Prince Henry hospital on 10th July 1923 aged 79.

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.