Early Life and Career
Walter Adams Coxen was born at Egham, England, on 22 June 1870. Coxen and his family moved to Australia in 1880. Walter was educated at Brisbane Grammar School and Toowoomba Grammar School. He took a job with the Queensland Department of Railways as a clerk and draftsman on 18 August 1887, but was retrenched in 1892 due to the depression of the 1890s.
In 1893 Coxen was commissioned into the Queensland Militia Garrison Artillery as a second lieutenant. In June 1895 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the Permanent Military Forces, in the Queensland Artillery. In 1897 he was sent to England to study at the Royal School of Gunnery at Shoeburyness, concentrating on coast defence and siege artillery, and then went to Aldershot for training with the Royal Artillery in 1898.
On returning to Australia in 1899 he was appointed commander of the garrison on Thursday Island, with the rank of captain. In July 1902 he succeeded Major W Bridges as Chief Instructor at the School of Gunnery at Middle Head. In November 1907, Coxen again went to England for ordnance training at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich.
He was promoted to major in 1908, and returned to Australia in February 1910. Coxen served briefly with the coast artillery at Fort Queenscliff before becoming Inspector of Ordnance and Ammunition at Army Headquarters in Melbourne. In January 1911 he became Director of Artillery. On 14 August 1914, Coxen also became Inspector of Coast Defences with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
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