Oxley is a south-western suburb in the City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. In the , Oxley had a population of 8,336 people.
Oxley is located approximately from the Brisbane CBD, but it is from the Brisbane GPO by road. The suburb contains a mix of residential and industrial land.
Geography
Oxley is bounded to the north by the Brisbane River and Oxley Creek flows along the eastern edge. In the east the environment is shaped by flood plains which experience major flooding and flash-flooding. Western parts of the suburb are characterised by rolling hills with clay-laden soils. The suburb is traversed by the Ipswich Motorway connecting Oxley to Rocklea to the east and Darra to the west. Oxley Road connects Oxley to Corinda to the north and continues south across the Ipswich Motorway with the name Blunder Road to Durack, Seventeen Mile Rocks Road connects Oxley to the west to Seventeen Mile Rocks and Darra. Oxley is separated from Fig Tree Pocket by the Brisbane River.
Oxley has two golf courses and a golf driving range—Oxley Golf Course located at 290 Boundary Road (), and Corinda Golf Course located on Cliveden Avenue, the latter of which has now been purchased by Brisbane Boys' College as their playing fields along with the driving range. Oxley also contains the Canossa Private Hospital and.the Queensland Police Service's training academy.
The former Austral Bricks quarry site in Douglas Street, as well as two other plots of vacant land in the area have been converted to residential estates. The quarry was originally owned by Brittain Bricks. For many years the site was a brickworks, sourcing clay directly from adjacent pits. After production stopped, the kiln stack remained intact. During the mid-1990s the tall structure was removed as it was attracting lightning strikes.
History
The area that is now known as Oxley has been an important place to Aboriginal people for thousands of years. The banks of Benarrawa, the original name for Oxley Creek, were home to clans such as the Yerongpan and Chepora, part of the Yugara and Yugarabul peoples. Surrounded by dense forest and abundant wildlife like kangaroos (murri), koalas (dumbirrbi), turtles (binkin), and black swans (marutchi), This area also served as a transit route (kul'gun) for other clans travelling throughout the region. Many traditional land management and hunting techniques were used around Benarrawa, such as firestick farming and the use of ingenious fishing methods like traps and chemical stunning.
19th century
Oxley Creek was named in honour of John Oxley who first surveyed it in December 1823. Initially Oxley had called the creek Canoe Creek. This was in recognition of the first Europeans to reach the creek, Thomas Pamphlett, John Finnegan, Richard Parsons who reached the area after being shipwrecked on Stradbroke Island. At Oxley Creek the three found two canoes, one of which was used to cross the river and travel downstream. In 1925, Edmund Lockyer, during his survey of the Brisbane River, named it Oxley Creek in honour of John Oxley. The suburb takes its name from the creek.
The first land sale that covered parts of today's Oxley occurred in 1851. Oxley once covered a larger area including the suburbs of Chelmer, Graceville and Corinda to the north. It extended to the south into the current suburbs of Willawong and Durack. The first subdivision of residential lands occurred in 1864 near Douglas Street. Although the railway through the suburb connected Oxley to Brisbane, it was the road to Ipswich that defined the suburb's early development.
A significant portion of the area now encompassing Oxley was originally leased by Thomas Boyland, in the early 1850s, with the area being known as Boyland's Pocket. This land was later subdivided for small farms, approximately from the 1860s.
The suburb was a stop-over point on the Cobb & Co coach route west to the Darling Downs. The first hotel in Oxley was built in 1860 close to Oxley Creek on a rise near Factory Road. It attracted other businesses to the area and provided refreshments for travellers between Brisbane and Ipswich. The hotel soon gained a reputation as a venue where drinking and dancing occurred well into the morning hours. The hotel was moved several times due to flooding which was not a deterrent to the licensee. By 1892 a brick hotel has been built on the corner of Oxley Road and Ipswich Road, the site of a public bar still open today.
By the late 1860s the area had grown sufficiently to support a hotel, racecourse, post office and churches.