The hotel business was in Thomas Moxley’s genes. His father was a publican, albeit a not very successful one, achieving several bankruptcies and a prison sentence for “fraudulent insolvency” before dying in 1889 with liabilities of £833. His mother was also a publican, holding licences for the Metropolitan Hotel in Brisbane and, later, Redcliffe’s Great Western Hotel.
Tom started his hotel career early, applying for his first licence, of the British Empire Hotel in Queen Street, just after his 22nd birthday in 1893. The application stated that he was married and had not held a licence before, although he was already managing the hotel. Two years later, by which time they had a daughter, he and his wife, Annie, moved to the up-and-coming seaside resort of Redcliffe and took over the Redcliffe Hotel.
It was at the Redcliffe, “that favourite and commodious hotel”, that young Tom came into his own, being described in The Queenslander in 1902 as “the genial ‘Tom’ Moxley … one of the go-ahead members of the community”. The paper also reported the hotel to be “well kept” with the “comfort of the numerous boarders” being capably seen to by Tom’s “estimable wife”. Moxley was, according to this account, much in demand as a swimming teacher for lady guests.
From Redcliffe to Legacy: A Life in Hospitality and Community
His duties as a landlord did not keep him from contributing to communal affairs on the rapidly developing peninsula. He was secretary to two local Masonic lodges and was involved with the Redcliffe Progress Association, being elected assistant secretary to that body in 1901.
He was a skilled fisherman, attested to by a report in the Queensland Figaro of his “capture of a cod fish of 60lbs”, and handy at billiards (“Tom Moxley is no slouch with the cue”). But he also supported other sports. In 1901, “being willing and anxious to help along” the sport of cycle racing, he donated five guineas to the Brisbane Bicycle Club as first prize for a race finishing at Redcliffe.
Tom, with Annie and their daughter, Maysie, left Redcliffe in 1905 to take up the licence of the Brisbane Club Hotel in Wharf Street. He continued to be a benefactor to sporting bodies, at one time allowing the nascent Rugby League to use his premises for meetings and training. Subsequent to the Club Hotel, he managed licenced premises in Beenleigh, Esk and Beaudesert.
Tom and Annie celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1942 and Tom died in 1948, memorialised as “widely known and greatly liked”, “a splendid sport … and a prince of publicans”.
[With thanks to City of Moreton Bay | Image courtesy of City of Moreton Bay, reference number RMPC-100\100202].
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