John Foxall
FOXALL, John Stuart BE, MIEAust. (1887-1967)
John Stuart Foxall was born at Ryde, NSW, on February 9, 1887. He was the son of Edward William Foxall and Margaret Nerissa Foxall nee Dobbie. He was a bright student, winning two State medals for French and Algebra when he sat his Junior Certificate at Fort Street School in Sydney.
In 1904 he joined CSR as a chemist and then in 1908 commenced a mining engineering degree at Sydney University. He completed the degree in 1911 and in 1912 was admitted as a Member of the Institute of Mining Engineers in 1912.
Foxall was the surveyor at the Sons of Gwalia Ltd mine from 1911 until 1916, when he enlisted in the AIF. He served in the First Australian Tunnelling Company in France and Belgium. He had married, on November 17, 1914, local teacher, Mary Josephine O’Grady, at Leonora. They had two sons who both died in tragic circumstances. The eldest, John Desmond Foxall died in an explosion at the Sons of Gwalia mine in 1936 and Stuart Edward Foxall died in a prisoner of war camp in Thailand in 1943. Mary Josephine Foxall also died young, on July 3, 1923.
In February 1928, Foxall remarried Hilda Gladys Tretheway in Perth. He returned to Sons of Gwalia after the war, but was one of over one hundred employees that lost their jobs after a major mine fire. In 1922 he was undertaking contract surveying in the Wheatbelt. In 1923 he was manager of a Mica mine in the Northern Territory.
In mid 1923 Foxall returned to Western Australia to work in the Public Works Department as a draughtsman, and in 1926 was promoted to assistant engineer working on the construction of country water supplies. In 1931 he was transferred to the Irrigation and Drainage Branch and worked as a design engineer on projects constructed under sustenance schemes.
In 1934, Foxall was appointed as an inspector of mines at Kalgoorlie. He was appointed Assistant State Mining Engineer in 1937 and State Mining Engineer in 1944. During Foxall’s period as Mining Engineer the Department was still largely concerned with the mining of gold and coal but, as the 1950s neared, there was greater emphasis on the exploration for and exploitation of other minerals.
Foxall retired in 1952 and was succeeded by Edgar Brisbane. He then became director of Tarcoola Gold Mines Limited and, in 1953, he was made Australian Manager of Bewick Moreing. He was appointed as a director of Australian Tin and Strategic Minerals Limited in 1954.
John Foxall was active within the Institution of Engineers, having been a foundation associate member and gaining full membership in 1939. He was elected Chairman of the Goldfields Group in 1935, WA Division Chairman in 1940 and National Councillor in 1941.
J S Foxall died on March 12, 1967 in Perth and was survived by his second wife.
References:
Public Service Lists
Lenore Layman and Crienna Fitzgerald editors, 110°in the Waterbag, Western Australian Museum, 2011
West Australian, 26.8.1944, p4
Spillman, pp.190, 202
