User:AnonNep/draft OMC burials
Old Melbourne Cemetery
[edit]Dimensions/burials
[edit]'As you entered our Old Cemetery you passed through a short but beautiful avenue of elms... The convicts were buried just outside the northern end of the Cemetery in No Man's Land'.[1]
The Cemetery was 834 ft. long and 540 ft. wide; that is, it had an area of 450,000 square feet, and as it was crowded with graves it has been estimated that ten thousand were buried there. Hayter's statistics show that there were in Victoria seventeen thousand one hundred and twelve deaths from 1836 to 1854... Howlitt testifies that he saw 800 graves in 1843.'[1]
In July 1851, after the Jury at a Coroner's Inquest determined Charles Seago "had himself inflicted the wound of which he died" he was "interred in the unconsecrated portion of the burial ground at midnight".[2]
As reported inThe Argus in January 1870[3]:
"'The remains of the late Mr. J.C. King were conveyed on Saturday to their place of interment, the old Queen-street Cemetery, and deposited in the grave belonging to the family, where two of the deceased relatives had already been buried."
Early complaints
[edit]As reported in The Argus in February 1849, Alderman Kerr, of the Town Council, proposed "That the Melbourne Burying Ground, from its dangerous proximity to the inhabited part of the City, and from the inconvenience of its position ought not, in the position of this Council to be longer used..." and requested "a sufficient portion of land in a suitable locality to form the future Cemetery of the City". Speaking to the motion Alderman Kerr added that "on the last hot Sabbath in Melbourne, some persons walking in the neighbourhood of the Burial Ground, were compelled to return on account of the stench arising from the dead bodies".[4]
As reported in The Argus in July 1855[5]:
"It is a fact singularly illustrative of the extreme negligence with which the welfare of the community is attended to by those principally responsible for the duty, that numerous burials are still taking place in the Old Cemetery. Surrounded as that enclosure is rapidly becoming by a very dense population, we think there is something about this which is altogether inexcusable. The site was always unsuitable for a burial ground; but it became indefinitely more so as the city rapidly spread towards it, and eventually invested it on all sides. When the new Cemetery opened we thought, and everybody else thought, that interments in the old one would be put a stop to. And in a hot country like this, where people are only too much disposed to low fever and epidemics of various kinds, we can conceive nothing more blameable than additions to a crowd burial ground in a populous neighbourhood, from which burial ground exhalations of a most noisome and dangerous kind are even now known to emanate."
Market & 1870s land swap
[edit]As reported in The Argus in March 1863[6]:
"Several matters of minor, but still noticeable, importance are to be brought before the City Council... Tenders are to be accepted for erecting buildings on the wholesale market reserve, in Elizabeth-street...Lastly, it is to be decided whether application should be made to the Government to vest the management of the Old Cemetery in the hands of the City Council, as trustees."
The tender was to go to John Falconer for £361 but objections to the tender process and types of wood (baltic or oregon) led to a call for tenders using both types.[7]
Letter to Editor (Dec 1873): "When the City Council gave up to the Government the old cattle market site in Elizabeth-street, they received two sites in exchange - one at the intersection of the Sydney and Flemington roads, to be devoted exclusively to the purpose of a hay, straw and horse market; the other, at Newmarket, to be used as a place for the sale of meat-cattle, sheep, pigs and goats exclusively."[8]
Start of land swap deal (dec 1873) - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page237475 Resident protest to Minister (pg 5 Col 3) - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page237590
2nd reading of bill giving Council the Cemetery land - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5931825
Committee report/s to Council on above - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5879940
Delegation meeting with Minister - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5876764
As above (fobbed off again) - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page239231
Letter to Ed - Gardener/Pro-Swap Feb 1875 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11512701
March 1875 - Council resolved to move market to Queen site in May 1873 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11514140
- ^ a b Selby, Isaac (1924), The old pioneer's memorial history of Melbourne : from the discovery of Port Phillip down to the World War, Old Pioneers' Memorial Fund, retrieved 25 June 2013
- ^ "SUIOIDE—CORONER'S INQUEST". The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957). Melbourne, Vic.: National Library of Australia. 8 July 1851. p. 4. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
- ^ "[No heading]". The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957). Melbourne, Vic.: National Library of Australia. 31 January 1870. p. 5. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
- ^ "TOWN COUNCIL". The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957). Melbourne, Vic.: National Library of Australia. 27 February 1849. p. 4. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
- ^ "DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE". The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957). Melbourne, Vic.: National Library of Australia. 3 July 1855. p. 5. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
- ^ "[No heading]". The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957). Melbourne, Vic.: National Library of Australia. 16 March 1863. p. 5. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
- ^ "CITY COUNCIL". The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957). Melbourne, Vic.: National Library of Australia. 17 March 1863. p. 6. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
- ^ "THE CORPORATION MARKETS". The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957). Melbourne, Vic.: National Library of Australia. 20 December 1873. p. 5. Retrieved 30 August 2013.
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