Oxford lived out the rest of his life in Melbourne, Australia. Oxford landed in Melbourne with a new alias, John Freeman. Setting out to reform himself and become a respectable citizen, Freeman became a house painter and joined the West Melbourne Mutual Improvement Society. In 1881 he married a widow, Jane Bowen, becoming a stepfather to her two children, became a church warden at St Paul's Cathedral. He settled in the Albert Park neighbourhood. Under the pseudonym "Liber" he wrote articles for The Argus about the city's slums, markets and racetracks, and these became the basis for an 1888 book, Lights and Shadows of Melbourne Life. Freeman died in 1900.
