Camperdown Cemetery
Camperdown Cemetery is a historic cemetery located on Church Street in Newtown, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The cemetery was founded in 1848 and was for twenty years the main general cemetery for Sydney, with the total number of burials being about 18,000. Many people who were important to the early history of colonial Australia are buried there. It is the only one of Sydney's three main early cemeteries that still exists.
As well as historic monuments, the cemetery also preserves important elements of landscape gardening of the mid-19th century, and examples of native flora, which are now rare in the built-up inner city. St Stephen's Anglican Church is located within the present bounds of the cemetery. The site, with St Stephen's Church, is listed by the Heritage Council of New South Wales and the National Register as a site of national importance.
Camperdown Cemetery is associated with numerous sensational stories, several reputed ghosts and a murder. It is used regularly for historical and genealogical research. Because of its historical importance and convenient location, it is also a venue for excursions by schools and historical societies. Camperdown Cemetery is valued by the residents of Newtown as providing a major greenspace located in the immediate vicinity of a busy commercial centre. In a densely populated area of small terrace houses without substantial gardens, the cemetery functions as a recreational area and a venue for many family and social activities.
Description
Camperdown Cemetery is a walled portion of a mid-19th century cemetery, originally of nearly. It contains the most significant elements of the original landscape plan, which are the sexton's lodge, the gateposts, the original carriageway known as Jamison Avenue, a circular driveway known as Broughton Drive and a number of trees planted in the mid-19th century. This remaining section of the original cemetery contains about 2,000 tombstones and other memorials and monuments of which many came from the resumed area outside the wall. Many of the monuments were erected to families or individuals who are famous for their part in the history of 19th-century Australia. The monuments are mostly in Sydney sandstone, predating the fashion for marble memorials. A small number of the later monuments are in marble or granite. One of the largest memorials, that to the Barker family, was brought from Scotland. About 90% of the monuments are the work of a local mason, John Roote Andrews, and his family. Within Camperdown Cemetery stand the Cemetery Lodge, St Stephen's Anglican Church, and the St Stephen's Rectory.The trees include a Moreton Bay fig and a number of oaks that were planted in 1848 and are the oldest trees in the Marrickville district. The dominant species of tree in the cemetery are brush box, which were planted in the 1960s and 1970s. The other species include several large spreading blackwoods, a row of Canary Island palms along one side of Jamison Avenue dating from the 1930s, a grove of Chinese elms, two large African olives, lemon-scented gum, Melaleucas, a Port Jackson Cypress pine and two stands of giant bamboo.
Several large areas of the cemetery were covered with topsoil and planted with exotic grasses to create mown lawns in the 1950s and these have been maintained, and in places planted with bulbs. At the rear of the cemetery native grasses continued to grow, making this the largest inner-city remnant of the native flora of the original Turpentine–Ironbark forest that once covered the area. The major species is kangaroo grass, but there are a number of other species present including Dianella.
History
Foundation
Camperdown Cemetery was founded in 1848 and consecrated in 1849. It was founded as an Anglican General Cemetery, accepting the dead of all denominations, but burying them with the rites of the Church of England. Previous cemeteries in Sydney were the so-called Old Burial Ground of 1792, in George Street on the site of the Sydney Town Hall, and the New Burial Ground in Devonshire Street on the site of Central railway station, Sydney.The cemetery was proposed by a group of Sydney businessmen who formed the Church of England Cemetery Trust and in 1848 purchased of land "beyond the boundary stone" of Sydney, from Maurice Charles O'Connell, grandson of Governor Bligh. The land was part of a grant made to Governor Bligh and named "Camperdown" by him in commemoration of the Battle of Camperdown in which he had taken part. The land passed to his daughter Mary, who married Bligh's Aide de Camp, Major Putland, and following his death, Sir Maurice O'Connell. The cemetery was consecrated by Bishop William Grant Broughton on 16 January 1849.
The first interment was that of Bligh's son-in law, Lieutenant Governor Sir Maurice O'Connell who died in 1848, shortly before the cemetery was opened. His remains were exhumed from Devonshire Street, and reburied with due honours and a large memorial at the top of the hill at Camperdown. In the 1850s the small headstone of Mary's first husband, John Putland, who had died in 1808 and been buried at the Old Burial Ground, was given by St Philip's, York Street, and placed in the cemetery where it became the oldest memorial. The first burial was that of John Holden Michie, son of Archibald Michie who campaigned to end the transportation of convicts to Australia. Another significant burial in the same year is that of Sarah, wife of Bishop Broughton, who rests beneath the largest slab of stone in the cemetery. The Bishop planted a Chinese elm at the foot of her grave, and since then a small grove of these trees has sprung up in that part of the cemetery.
Closure to sales
In 1868, Camperdown Cemetery was closed against the sale of any further plots. The cemetery was not at that time full. However, because the Trust that controlled the cemetery was connected to the Church of England, the Parliament received no income from it and opened three new cemeteries that year, Rookwood Cemetery, South Head Cemetery and Gore Hill Cemetery. Stories were circulated about "bad air" rising from Camperdown Cemetery. Complaints were made that people had seen coffins covered with only a few inches of soil. This undeniable fact gave the impression that the management of the cemetery was severely at fault. However, it related to a purely practical matter. Half of the burials were of paupers, who were placed in communal graves at the expense of the government or the Benevolent Society. These took place at 9.00 am and 4.00 pm each day. Graves were dug deep enough to contain three or four coffins, and an unfilled grave might frequently be left open between the morning and afternoon burials in order to receive another coffin. From 1868, there were no more pauper's burials at Camperdown. The Cemetery continued in use, but only for the burial of people who had already purchased plots. There were about 15,733 burials from 1849 to 1867, 2,057 from 1868 to 1900 and only 172 burials between 1900 and the 1940s. The majority of the burials were done by the Rev. Charles Kemp, first rector of St Stephen's, Newtown. Rees claims that Kemp performed 16,000 burials from 1848 to 1870.Building of St Stephen's
In 1871, the small Church of St Stephen's Newtown, built by Edmund Blacket in 1844, could no longer contain the congregation. A site was needed for a larger church. By an Act of Parliament, the Church of England was permitted to build a church within the existent cemetery and Edmund Blacket was again the architect. The resulting St Stephen's Church, which held its first service in 1874, is a masterpiece of Gothic Revival architecture, and contributes greatly to the heritage significance of the site as a whole.Camperdown Memorial Rest Park
By the 1940s the cemetery was overgrown. In June 1946, the naked body of a murdered girl, 11-year-old Joan Norma Ginn, was found in the cemetery. This prompted action on behalf of the local council.In 1948, an Act of the NSW State Parliament established the Camperdown Memorial Rest Park, which was put under the control of the local council. All but of land were resumed as public space. The area of cemetery that adjoined St Stephen's Church was walled off from the park and continued to be managed by a body of trustees. Outside the wall, the park was cleared of trees and monuments, and a memorial garden, planted initially with Peace roses, was established on the south side.
The removal of the memorials from the park was a heritage disaster, resulting in the damage of a great number of the stones. Some of the larger and more significant memorials were re-erected within the smaller space. Hundreds of stelae tombstones were stood around the inside of the new stone wall and fixed to it with steel pins and cement. By 1980 the steel pins had rusted and expanded, cracking and defacing many of the stones. Other stelae were simply laid out in rows like pavers. Broken stones were reused at other sites and can be found bordering the fence of a nearby playground.
The chairman of the trust at that time was P. W. Gledhill, a trustee from 1924 until his death in 1962 and whose enthusiasm for the project left many visible marks on the cemetery. Gledhill rescued endangered monuments of all sorts and brought them to the cemetery, where they contribute to the landscape. These include the Erskineville water fountain, a longitude and latitude marker on a plinth made out of salvaged pieces of Camperdown Villa, and the pediment from the Maritime Services Board building dating from the 1850s. In the 1960s the gateposts of the entrance were set further apart, and new gates were installed in memory of Gledhill. His 1946 book A Stroll through the Historic Camperdown Cemetery, NSW lists many notable burials and monuments and includes detailed maps of the cemetery as it was before its conversion to a park.