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.

W.E. & T.F. Moxon - arrived 1887

William Ernest Moxon, born in Ramsgate Kent in 1863 and Thomas Frank Moxon, born in Charlton, Kent in 1865, followed their elder brother Robert Julius to Australia in 1887.  Initially, William and Thomas worked together, establishing a service of small steamers along the Queensland coast.  However, William was headhunted by the Adelaide Steamship Company in 1890, and  became its first Queensland manager and inspector.

He moved with the company to Western Australia and raised a family there, returning to his former position in Queensland in 1918.  He took an active interest in industrial, commercial and shipping interests in both states, and in the days preceding Federation, he worked hard in Western Australia for the formation of the National Parliament.

In his younger days, he played cricket, soccer and hockey and was an enthusiastic fisherman.

He died at his home in Southport, Qld in 1946, aged 82.  He was survived by several children.  His children were Philip, Janet, Thomas and Nora.

Meanwhile, Thomas Frank Moxon, having served time as a seaman since 1880 when he was 14, joined the AUSN Co Ltd as a first officer and then ship's master on steamships plying the east coast.  He and his brother joined forces in 1891 and established Moxon & Co, working on their own account.  But after 1893, he carried on the shipping business on his own, and increasingly became attracted to the timber industry.  In 1903, Moxon & Company Pty Ltd was incorporated.

At the time of his death in 1936, he was the chairman of a prosperous group of companies based in Cairns, Brisbane and Sydney.

The family lived at Camden, Toowong in Brisbane.