Coxon, Frank Herbert

COXON, Frank Herbert[Frank] (1859–1932), mechanical engineer and architect, was born at Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, third son of William Coxon, town clerk, and Ann. He often advanced his age, by up to 14 years as when he passed through Australia in 1882. After he was educated in Staffordshire and Derbyshire, Coxon was articled to and continued to work with Thornewill & Warham (Robert Thornewill (1799–1858) & John Robson Warham (1820-1886)), general and brewery engineers of Burton-on-Trent, for six years while also receiving private lessons in architecture. In 1881 he was appointed by Alfred Seale Haslam (1844–1927) a pioneer of machinery for freezing meat, as the New Zealand representative of the Haslam Foundry & Engineering Co., of Derby. Prior to leaving for New Zealand, Coxon inspected the first ships being fitted out by the company for the frozen meat trade from Australia. In early 1882, he arrived in New Zealand where he built a meat freezing works at Burneside, near Dunedin, the first in New Zealand. He remained in New Zealand most of that decade, his work included: installing refrigerating machinery on several ships of the New Zealand Shipping Co; freezing works in Wellington, Auckland, Waitara and Bluff for various companies, and was in partnership with Thomas Benjamin Jackson (1840–1929) as Coxon & Jackson, architects and engineers of Auckland and Christchurch during 1884-86. In 1890, for a syndicate of English businessmen, Coxon moved to Sydney to develop a meatworks at Newcastle. When he was commissioned by the newly formed Queensland Meat Export Company to design works at Townsville and Brisbane, Coxon moved his office to Brisbane where he employed GM RITCHIE and Oscar GRANOWSKI. Tenders for these major industrial enterprises were called in 1891, and in 1892, he designed works for boiling down and preserving meat at Bourke, NSW. He served as acting manager for the Brisbane plant in 1892-3, overseeing repairs after the floods of early 1893. These projects attracted a great deal of interest and were widely publicised. Some of the plant for these meatworks was probably supplied by WILDRIDGE & SINCLAIR. Coxon moved back to Sydney by 1895 but continued to do work in Queensland. In addition to altering and extending his earlier work at various dates: he designed a salting works at Enoggera (1898), a slaughter house and freezing works for Birt & Co (1900) for which he provided an electric light and power plant (1901), a slaughter house and freezing works at Redbank (1901) and wharves and wool stores at Teneriffe for the Brisbane Stevedoring & Wool Dumping Company (1910) and advised governments and designed refrigeration and other industrial facilities in many states. He also designed a major meatworks built by Australian contractors at La Plata, Argentina (c1902). From c1915, Coxon worked in partnership with his sons, Frank Maurice Coxon (1888–1984) and Alfred Herbert (1905–1958) as consulting engineers and architects. The firm sought engagement as consulting engineer and architect for proposed Cold Stores for Dairy Produce at Bulimba (later erected at Hamilton) but the work was carried out by the Works Department and WILDRIDGE & SINCLAIR. Their major project in Sydney was the State Abattoirs at Homebush Bay (1919) later demolished for the Sydney Olympics (2000). At various times, Coxon owned various pastoral properties in Queensland, including Fairfield, Springvale, and Rand near Longreach, Glendower, near Prairie, and Teresa Downs, near Hughenden. Coxon died from strychnine poisoning in his office at Sydney on 30^th August 1932. He predeceased his wife Katharine Dorathea Ursula Stack, second daughter of the Rev. JW Stack whom he married in New Zealand in 1886.

In references to Coxon’s Queensland work his surname is frequently misspelt as Coxen, due to the local prominence of a Queensland pioneering family the Coxens, including William Henry (1823-1915), William’s sons Charles Henry (b1969- ) of the Queensland Works Department, and Walter Adams (1870-1949), a clerk and draftsman with the Queensland Railways Department, later a distinguished soldier and chief of the general staff; and William’s uncle Charles (1809-1876), and Charles’ wife Elizabeth (?-1906). Coincidentally, Coxon’s Brisbane meatworks at Murrarie was built on the site of Charles and Elizabeth Coxen’s residence The Terraces, which was reused as the manager’s residence.