Map of Moreton Bay, Brisbane and surrounds. Dixon c1842.

$195.00

Map of Moreton Bay Compiled From Authentic Surveys And Containing All The Latest Discoveries made by exploring parties Is Most Respectfully Dedicated to His Grace the Duke of Cleveland By His Most Obedient Servant Robert Dixon. 1842.

Rare Limited Edition reproduction (174 of 200) from a lithograph by Liley of a map drawn by Robert Dixon (1800-1858).

Robert Dixon was a surveyor in the Surveyor-General’s Department under Lieutenant John Oxley. In 1826 Dixon had joined Major Thomas Mitchell and Major Edmund Lockyer in their unsuccessful attempt to survey Grose Valley near Mt Victoria. Dixon’s later survey trips through the Blue Mountains allowed Mitchell to establish a new road to Bathurst in 1829.

After spending 10 years surveying New South Wales, Dixon applied for leave to go to England ‘on urgent private business’. In London in 1837 he published an unauthorized map of Australia from his compilation of official surveys and documents. On Dixon’s return to Sydney the following year he was refused reinstatement by Mitchell. He moved from Sydney to Moreton Bay settlement in 1839. This trigonometrical survey of Moreton Bay for the Government to facilitate free settlement, was compiled from a 3-mile base line on Normanby Plains.

In 1840 Dixon was appointed surveyor in charge of the Moreton Bay district, but was suspended following an altercation with the commander of the penal establishment after Dixon's convict servant had been arrested. The Lieutenant was relieved of his appointment as magistrate and the charges against Dixon were dropped, but he was not reinstated. Finding little work available Dixon returned to England in 1846. He returned to Australia in 1852, died in Sydney in 1858, and was survived by his wife and three of their six children.

Size, 91 x 71cm (36 x 28 inches). There is a small soiled spot at right border.

Out of stock