Nixon family papers, mainly correspondence, together with Brand family papers, 1889-1942

MLMSS 7813

fonds

1889 - 1942

825442

0.16 metres of textual material (1 box)

Julien Francis Nixon, engineer, was the eldest son of Frank and Julia, nee Brand, and brother of Christopher and Norman. Julia Nixon's brother Alex Brand married Frank Nixon's sister Violet and they were the parents of Mona Brand; another brother James (Jim) Brand was a captain in the Royal Australian Navy.
In September 1927 Julien Nixon left Australia on the SS Port Brisbane and later that year commenced employment at John Brown & Co., shipbuilders in Glasgow. He was on board during the trials of the battleship HMAS Australia, as was his uncle Captain James Brand. In February 1929 he moved to Rugby to work for the engineering company British Thomson-Houston. Nixon returned to Australia in late 1930.
Source: Mitchell Library file and the papers

Papers of Nixon family, mainly letters received by Julia Nixon; together with miscellaneous Brand family papers:

Letters from Frank Nixon to Julia Brand (before their marriage), 1897, undated; and in July and August 1914 while he was travelling in North Queensland including a visit to Palm Island

Letters from Julien Nixon to his mother, father, and brothers, 1927-1930: the letters were written while travelling to Europe via the Suez Canal on board the SS ‘Port Brisbane’, and while working and travelling in Scotland and England; the letters include descriptions of economic and social conditions in Glasgow, his work at John Brown & Co, the ship ‘Duchess of Richmond’, the battleship HMAS ‘Australia’, the countryside in Scotland and England, visits to Aberdeen, London, and Melford Hall in Suffolk, the home of Sir William Hyde Parker

Letter from Julien Nixon to Mona and Len, 1993

Letter from James (Jim) Brand to his sister Julia Nixon, 1927

Letters from Alex Brand to his sister Julia Nixon, 1929, 1930, 1933

Letter from D A Brand, serving in the Torres Straits Forces, to his ‘Little Sister’ [Mona?], 1942

Miscellaneous papers including: reference for Frank Nixon from Wm. Howard Smith & Sons Ltd, 9 November 1889; copy of a photograph of Julien Nixon in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, ca 1930; description by Julien Nixon of ‘Avonleigh’, the family home in Brisbane; photocopy of Memorandum of the Services of Captain Christopher Parker Nugent Nixon, 1793-1815, (from the Admiralty records in the Public Record Office, London); poems written by Alex Brand; photocopies of photographs of Alex Brand, his wife Violet Brand, and his brother Fitzroy Brand; extract of birth of Alexander Brand, Aberdeen, 10 October 1845; photocopy of the ‘Grant of the dignity of a Commander of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire to Engineer Captain James John Cantley Brand, R.A.N.’, 3 June 1929