He was the grandson of the Scottish born newspaper pioneer - he founded the Cairns Argus, the Atherton News and the Barron Valley Advocate - William Graham Henderson (1864-1943).
[1][2] He attended Gordonvale State School and Thornburgh College in Charters Towers.
Maxwell was the first person to be awarded a PhD at the University of Queensland, in 1952, under the supervision of Dorothy Hill.
[4] He was awarded the Beit Fellowship for Scientific Research to Imperial College London in 1952.
[10] In 1970, Maxwell gave evidence to the Commonwealth crown-of-thorns starfish committee of inquiry.