Camperdown Cemetery

Camperdown Cemetery is a walled portion of a mid-19th century cemetery, originally of nearly . 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. 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 (Themeda triandra), 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 (1819–68) in Devonshire Street on the site of Central railway station, Sydney. 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 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. 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. 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. Decline and recovery In the 1950s and '60s, the demographics of Newtown changed greatly due to influx of migrants from Southern Europe, the congregation at St Stephen's Church diminished, and for a time it appeared that the church might be closed. At this time, the cemetery suffered much from general neglect and uncurbed vandalism. Another group of volunteers regularly weed and maintain the areas of native grassland. One individual volunteer, the elderly Joyce Knuckey, contributed almost daily to the cemetery's maintenance for many years. In the late 1980s a Bicentennial Heritage Grant made possible the restoration of the Cemetery Lodge and the basic repair of many broken monuments. This followed in the 1990s with donations from the New South Wales Institution of Surveyors for the restoration of the tomb of Sir Thomas Mitchell and from the Andrews family for the restoration of their family memorial. A conservation strategy for monuments was created, a landscape management plan was commenced and several individual studies focussed on aspects of the cemetery such as inscriptions, trees, native flora and the Dunbar tomb. Since 2001, the gateposts have been repositioned and the original gates restored. The vandalised gravestone of one of the cemetery's best-known inhabitants, Eliza Emily Donnithorne, a jilted bride who may have inspired Charles Dickens' creation of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, has been restored. ==Features==

Cemetery Lodge The lodge is a small cottage of three rooms and an attic, which stands in the right corner of the remaining area of the cemetery, when approached through the gates from Church Street. It is built of brick and partly rendered, with a steep shingled gabled roof and a projecting porch. The pitch of the roof and the arch of the door are indicative of the Colonial Neo-Gothic style. The original entrance to the cemetery was immediately outside the lodge and the driveway, Jamison Avenue, passed by it. A new driveway was later constructed to pass by St Stephen's Church, and one of the gateposts moved to its present site. Fig tree It is believed that the Moreton Bay fig tree was planted in 1848 to commemorate the roofing of the lodge, possibly following a Northern European custom of placing a small sapling on the roof on the day that the ridge is set in place. The tree has a span of more than 30 metres and, with the oak trees that were planted in the same year, is the oldest tree in the Marrickville District. Monuments There are a great variety of monuments within the cemetery, but the vast majority of them are carved from Sydney sandstone and are the product of a single monumental mason, John Roote Andrews, who had his premises nearby on Prospect Street. Major Mitchell, soldier, surveyor and poet, has a sword, a quill and a laurel wreath. Another soldier, most curiously, had a small cannon carved on the tombstone of his wife. Oddments Some of the most prominent and remarkable features of the site are not tombs or gravestones but are an assortment of objects, mostly architectural, that have been saved from destruction and placed in the cemetery. These include a decorative water fountain with a Gothic arch, previously in Erskineville, placed in the cemetery as a memorial to E.W. Molesworth M.L.A. for 45-year Church Warden of St Stephen's. It is now a feature of countless wedding photos. Near it stands the detached pediment of a building with a carved ship ploughing through the waves; it originally was over the front entrance to the old Harbour Trust Building, Circular Quay () and was placed in the cemetery as a memorial to seamen after the second World War. Another such memorial is an anchor from Morts Dock attached to which was a chain from the S.S. Collaroy that ran aground on the beach now known by that name in 1881. The two large gateposts marking the entrance to the Dunbar Track are from the Devonshire Street Cemetery. ==Burials==

Note: Information in this list is drawn from T.G. Rees • Tommy, William Perry, Mogo and Mandelina. Tommy, an 11-year-old Aboriginal boy who died of bronchitis in the Sydney Infirmary was the first recorded Christian burial of an Aboriginal person. The four names are recorded on an obelisk which commemorates the "Rangers of New South Wales" and "the whole Aboriginal race". • Others important colonial families who have members buried in the cemetery are the Macleays and Dumaresqs, the Tooths and children of the Farmers retailing family. • Among the memorials moved to Camperdown from other sites was that of Mary Reibey, which has disappeared, presumed stolen or destroyed. • The tombstone of Edmund Blacket, architect of St Stephen's, and his wife Sarah was moved to Camperdown from Balmain Cemetery when that cemetery was resumed as park. Their ashes were placed in St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney. • One of the most famous burials in the cemetery is that of the victims of the wreck of the Dunbar. This clipper ship went down off Sydney Heads on the night of 20–21 August 1857 after a voyage from England, with all but one of the 122 people aboard perishing. The wreck had a profound effect on the people of Sydney, because nearly all the passengers were Sydney residents returning home. A tomb contains the remains of 22 of those who died, along with the victims from the wreck of the Catherine Adamson which sank in the harbour two months later. The "Dunbar Memorial Service" is held in the cemetery in the August of each year. • Near the main drive that passes by the church are four small matching tombstones with inscriptions recording the deaths of seven children of the York and Free families. These and many other tombstones reflect the high infant mortality of the 19th century. The burial dockets indicate that many children died of diphtheria and measles, with one measles outbreak resulting in the burials of up to twelve children a day. Strangely, to the modern reader, the major cause of death of infants below the age of two years is given as teething. • A memorial plaque placed near the drive reads: ==Ghosts==

• Camperdown Cemetery has one undisputed "ghost" as a permanent resident – Bathsheba Ghost, the second matron Matron of the Sydney General Hospital. However, there are those who claim that she is not simply a ghost in name alone, but has been seen attending the sick in St Stephen's Rectory. • The most sensational ghost story, and one that developed rapidly in form from the time of its first telling in the mid 1990s, is the story of Hannah Watson and her lover. Hannah, the wife of Captain Thomas Watson, the Harbour Master of Port Jackson, according to the legend, was having an affair with Captain John Steane of the Royal Navy. Thomas Watson, on discovering his wife's infidelity, cursed the lovers. Hannah wrote to Steane, begging him not to return to Sydney, but it was too late. Hannah Watson died and was buried in the cemetery. John Steane outlived Hannah by only a few days. The ship in which he was returning to the arms of his beloved was the ill-fated Dunbar. John Steane's body was one of the few that were recovered intact. It is buried in a separate grave near the Dunbar Tomb, and only a few metres from the plot where Thomas Watson had recently buried his wife. It is claimed that Hannah Watson has been seen emerging from her tomb in the form of a ghostly grey lady. She is said to drift slowly to the grave of her erstwhile lover. Although the tale has been told many times, and has been used as the basis for a work of fiction, no investigation into the possibility of a love-affair between Hannah Watson and Captain John Steane has yet been made. John Steane's descendants continue to live in the vicinity of Newtown. ==Notes==