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 with two children, and became a church warden at St Paul's Cathedral. 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.