Rookwood - this place is huge!

Rookwood Cemetery, or Necropolis ( meaning "City of the Dead") is 300 hectares / 877 acres in size, making it the largest cemetery in the southern hemisphere. Rookwood Necropolis is vast..... one of the best preserved Victorian era "gardenesque" cemeteries in the world, with burials starting here in about 1867.

It was always going to be a tough job to even touch the sides of the heritage involved in a cemetery as big as this one - but Julie Rusten, Jane, and Kevin of the "Friends of Rookwood"  gave it a shot this last weekend at their yearly open day.

 

Rookwood was founded in the 1860's  as two older cemeteries became full, and the land was needed by the living.

When the Devonshire Street / Sandhills Cemetery,(where Belmore park and Central Railway station are now,) and the former Graveyard of the St Andrews Cathedral in George Street in the Sydney CBD were closed and the land resumed, many graves were then re-located . As a result - a huge slice of our early colonial history has either been moved here to Rookwood from these places, or buried here ever since.

This painting above is one of the old Sydney burial ground in George Street, where the Town Hall is now. It seems hard to imagine that the heart of our CBD was once considered the "outer, outer limits" of town - in 1802!

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The site was chosen for:

•  it's proximity to the railway line,( a spur line from Lidcombe station was built.) 
  
• ease of digging - ( there were no mechanical back hoes in those days- grave digging was done by hand) ,
  
•  and drainage of the site had to go directly away from where the living were drawing their drinking water - in this case directly into Homebush bay on the Parramatta river, which mixes fresh water with sea water from Sydney Harbour.

The railway line started from a purpose built Mortuary station in Regent Street, off Broadway in the Sydney CBD, seen here. This is just around the corner from Central Railway station, where it remains to this day.

The special train would then steam from here out to Rookwood,  and dropped people at 5 different railway stations, either for a funeral, or a day out with the "passed on" relatives, within the cemetery itself. Victorian society had an entire etiquette around the subject of dealing with grief. It was a fairly common thing for people to spend time at the grave site, and part of popular culture was to be re-united with loved ones in death.

Tragedy could strike families in cruel ways - and often did.  On some grave sites in Rookwood we can see a generation of children in a family taken away in a measles, typhoid, dysentery or influenza epidemic, for example. Industrial accidents and related chronic health conditions from dangerous work practices that eventually resulted in death, such as lead poisoning, breathing coal dust, and problems that we now associate with the third world, were commonplace.

 Without antibiotics, a scratch in the garden could get infected and kill you, as easily as falling off a horse, or walking in front of a carriage at the wrong time. God help you if you were having children in the 19th century - 3 or 4 out of 10 didn't make it to adulthood, with 3 in 20 mothers dying in childbirth. Death was a much more prevalent fact of life that Victorian era people had to cope with.

Trains left the Mortuary station in the morning, and then typically returned in the mid to late afternoon. There were first class, second class and third class passengers - with the dearly departed travelling in the luggage car for free!

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This is what the Mortuary railway stations at Rookwood looked like.

Rookwood was designed as a Victorian era garden where the living went to spend time with the dead, with gardens, flowers, rows of trees, pavillions to shelter from the sun and have picnics in, streams and fountains.This is the Serpentine canal, a series of ponds, fountains and canals that act as the main drainage of the Cemetery. The "serpentine" path of the canal is intended to mitigate the speed at which the water flows to the sea, as there are reed beds and bullrushes at different points that effectively filter the water on the way out.

Ironically, after going to so much effort to put in a railway, this was discontinued after the second world war, and the five railway stations in Rookwood were removed - one of which was removed lock stock and barrel and sent hundreds of kilometres south, where it is now the All Saints Church in Ainslie, in the nation's capital city, Canberra. You can see from the Glass entrance on the front - this was where the trains used to go through! Now there is only an "architectural  interpretation" of the old Mortuary station No:1 remaining

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There are many famous people who have been buried at Rookwood over the years, here are just a few:

Anglican Section

• Mei Quong Tart - Popular leading 19th century Sydney merchant-Philanthropist-network tea rooms including "Elite Hall" in QVB. Located in Section 2, Grave 310. Celebrated as the first seriously successful Chinese born Australian of the Victorian era.
• Bing Lee - of Bing Lee Electrical stores fame.
  
• Jacob Pitman - Brother of Sir Isaac Pitman,introduced phonetic shorthand to Australia. Located in Section GG - Grave 482.
• The Watson’s family Vault - Gothic Revival Architecture, designed by William Wardell who designed St. Mary's Cathedral Sydney. Located in Section 1, Graves 29-31 - 43-45.
• Anthony Hordern II - Located in Section S, Vault 8. Founder of the famous Sydney retail business.Remembered by buildings such as the Hordern Pavillion at Moore Park / former Sydney Showgrounds.
  
• David Scott Mitchell - Located in Section S, Vault 8. Founder and Benefactor of the Mitchell Library,Sydney
• Isaac Nichols - Located in Section 2, Grave 154. He was a former convict who became the first Postmaster. Transferred from the Devonshire Street cemetery to Rookwood in 1901.
• William Ramsbottom - Located in Section A, Grave 420. Acclimatised Trout into Rivers in Tasmania. Was the 1st Superintendent of the Historic Salmon ponds in Tasmania from 1864 – 1868.
• John Deering - the original Surveyor of Rookwood Cemetery, Located in Section AAA/995.
• Louisa Lawson- Pioneer of women's sufferage( civil rights and right to vote)  in Australia, and Henry Lawson's mother.
• Kenneth Slessor OBE - famous Australian poet
• John Gowing, co founder of the famous Australian department store "Gowings".
• The Hudson brothers, owners of what eventually became Clyde Engineering - formerly one of the biggest industrial organisations in the southern hemisphere, and the builders of generations of trains and train carriages for the NSW railways
  

Old General Section

• Bee Miles - Notorious in 1950's and 1960's/Sydney trams and taxis, well educated, a free spirit. So well known, that invariably nearly every history walk run by the "Friends of Rookwood" has someone on the tour as a participant, with a story of her. She recited Shakespeare from the steps of the State Library in Macquarie Street. She was cremated and her ashes scattered. This is her family's grave site. Section Old General-Grave 208.

Independent Section

• • David Jones - The founder of the famous Sydney Department Stores
  • John Fairfax - Founder of The Sydney Morning Herald
  • The Frazer Nash family vault is well worth a look - it is bigger and better built than many churches.
    
  • Peter Dodds McCormick - Wrote "Advance Australia Fair." - The Australian national anthem. Located in the Presbyterian Section 4, Grave 125.
  • Andrew Torning - Founder N.S.W. Fire Brigade. Located in the Independent Old ground - Grave 2946.
  • Lillian Fowler, Australia's first female Mayor.
    

Jewish Section

• • Harry Van Der Sluys (or Sluice) - Stage name Roy Rene (Mo McCackie). Located in Section: 14 - Grave No: 654. The "Mo Awards" remain as awards for the best on-stage actors in Australia in tribute to him.
    
  • Abe Saffron - a famous underworld figure from the late 1940's to 2003.
    

Catholic Section

• John T. Lang - Politician in the 1930’s. Was Labour Premier of N.S.W. during the Depression. He introduced Child Endowment, Widows Pension and Workers Compensation Act, also restored the 44 hour week. Was dismissed in 1932 by State Governor Sir. Phillip Game, for refusing to pay interest to England – to Jack Lang, paying the dole was more important than paying British bond holders. He was born in 1876 and died September 1975. He opened Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932. Located in Lawn 3 - Grave 757E
• James Toohey, and the Toohey family - famous Beer Brewers
• Joseph Cahill, former premier of NSW - for whom the Cahill Expressway over the top of Circular Quay Railway station is named

Of course - with literally millions of people buried here, the stories associated with this site are endless!!