Charles Coxen

photo of portrait a Queensland Museum

Charles Coxen (20 April 1809 – 17 May 1876) was an Australian naturalist and politician. He was a brother-in-law of John Gould who had married his sister Elizabeth.

Coxen was born in Ramsgate, Kent, England. He emigrated to New South Wales, Australia, in 1834, to join his elder brother Stephen who had emigrated there seven years previously. During 1834-1835 he travelled through the sparsely settled country between the Hunter and Namoi Rivers, including the Liverpool Plains, collecting specimens of birds and mammals.

After gaining experience in pastoral management at his brother’s property “Yarrundi” near Scone, Coxen was involved in the management of several properties, first in northern New South Wales and later as one of the early settlers of the Darling Downs region of southern Queensland, along with his nephew Henry Coxen. In 1851 he married Elizabeth Frances Isaac, a woman who, unusually for the times, became known for her studies in meteorology and conchology, later becoming the first woman member of the Royal Society of Queensland. In 1855 he helped found the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, became its first honorary curator and secretary, as well as being a trustee, in association with the explorer Sir Augustus Gregory. He was also a founder of the Queensland Philosophical Society in 1859, the predecessor of the Royal Society of Queensland.

From 1855 to 1860 Coxen served as a member of a standing jury appointed to try civil cases in Brisbane. In 1860 he was elected the representative of the Northern Downs to Queensland’s first parliament. In 1867, after losing his parliamentary seat, he visited the new Gympie goldfield. In 1868 he was appointed land commissioner for Moreton Bay; in 1870 he also became land agent for Brisbane and, in 1872, inspecting commissioner for the settled districts, holding the three positions until 1875. In 1874 he was appointed to a commission inquiring into conditions of Aboriginals in Queensland.

Coxen died at Bulimba in Brisbane. He is commemorated in the name of Coxen's Fig-Parrot (Cyclopsitta diophthalma coxeni), named by his brother-in-law.

References

• Chisholm, A. H. (1969). 'Coxen, Charles (1809–1876)'. In: Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 3, Melbourne University Press, pp 487–488.[1]

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Name	Coxen, Charles
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Date of birth	20 April 1809
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Date of death	17 May 1876
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