12. Warringal Cemetery – Heidelberg

LOCATION PLAN

CEMETERY LAYOUT

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Entry from Wyora Rd

The Main gates are closed on Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays. Small pedestrian gates give access.

Plaque recording the date of the first burial in 1855.

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View from gazebo toward the Healesville Ranges.

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Powlett Street entrance (east).

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Brown Street entry.

POWLETT

Rev Duncan FRASER

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Reverend Duncan Fraser

The Reverend Duncan Fraser was a well-educated man who enjoyed healthy debates and was happy to be controversial. He was a “big” man, both in stature and personality. Born in Scotland, Duncan Fraser arrived in Australia already an ordained minister in 1862. He first came to Northcote in 1869, acting as the Presbyterian minister for an area which extended from Clifton Hill to Morang to Templestowe, although services were held in the church hall of the Primitive Methodists in Northcote. He also conducted services in the original Jika Jika Shire Hall which was adjacent to the Junction Hotel in South Preston. Reverend Fraser’s first church of his own in Northcote was a timber building built in 1876 near the corner of Cunningham St and High St. He was still the minister in 1890 when it was resolved to move the church to a more central location. The services were moved temporarily to the Northcote Town Hall while a new church was built on a site in James St which had been acquired by the Church. This church was finished in 1894 and is still used today, while the original church was moved next door and used as a Sunday school until 1906. However Reverend Fraser left Northcote just a year before the new church opened. The Northcote parish had been aligned with Heidelberg but the two parishes split in the early 1890s and Fraser moved to Heidelberg where his style was more appreciated. Prior to this Reverend Fraser became prominent in many areas of Northcote life.

In the late 1870s rumour of improper financial dealings by the Northcote Council was rife. The Council had come under heavy criticism for their support of the abattoirs and butchers that were plentiful in the area and which were accused of polluting the local atmosphere which was in turn giving Northcote a bad reputation. It was also affecting property prices in the area. A prominent local butcher, Thomas Mitchell, was a councillor and William Paterson, a bacon curer, had frequently been Shire President. Not surprising then that the council turned its back on the pollution and unhygienic practices of the industry. Suspicion of impropriety was heightened when a mysterious fire destroyed all Northcote’s rate books, ledgers and minute books just as an investigation was set to be launched.

Enter Reverend Fraser, who launched a popular campaign to fight council over the issue. Fraser started the Northcote Health League, which met in the Bridge Hotel opposite Fraser’s church. One of Fraser’s principal motivations for launching the campaign was that the foul odours emanating from Northcote’s many meatworks were driving his parishioners to distraction during his sermons. The League planned campaigns to force council to act. They lobbied the local Board of Health and the Central Board of Health and called on the government to tighten legislation. Most councillors were opposed to the League but slowly public opinion swayed the League’s way. The surge towards the League’s way of thinking was highlighted when prominent Northcote teacher Richard Tobin allied himself with the league, which led to Northcote breaking away from the Shire of Jika Jika in 1883 and becoming a separate council. Tobin led the petition to the governor requesting the breakaway. This measure had come in response to the 1882 election on to the council of George Plant, who was known to support the meat industry.

The Reverend Fraser would also become involved with the Collingwood Railway League as that organization demanded a direct railway from Melbourne to Collingwood in the late 1880s. The call would be denied by the government at that time as expensive and impractical! Fraser was also a great man of science and it is believed that he gave the first demonstration of the telephone in Victoria at the Wesleyan School room. For this reason he was particularly proud of his son James who became an engineer. He also had a daughter, Frances, who became headmistress of the prestigious Presbyterian Ladies College in Burwood. Duncan Fraser died in Heidelberg in 1912 at the age of 86.

Sources

Epping Road Board and the Shire of Jika Jika, Darebin Libraries Fact Sheet [Online], WWW Resource, Accessed 12/10/2006, Available at: http://dhe.darebin-libraries.vic.gov.au/uploaded/pdf/epping%20road%20board.pdf

Lemon, Andrew (1983). The Northcote Side of the River. North Melbourne: Hargreen.

SHADOWS ON THE SCREEN, (1920, October 30). Northcote Leader (Northcote, Vic.: 1882 – )

Swift, William George (1928). The history of Northcote: From its first settlement to a city. Northcote, Vic: Leader Publishing.

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Reverend and Mrs. Duncan Fraser

Date of creation: ca. 1900

1 photographic print: gelatin silver cabinet; on mount 16.5 x 10.7 cm., approx.

Owned by the State Library of Victoria

Accession No: H41478 Image No: a15459

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Heidelberg VIC – Scots Uniting

Address:	183 Burgundy Street Heidelberg
GPS:	-37.755929, 145.063592

History and Architecture:

Formerly a Presbyterian Church the first services were held at the invitation of Mr Alexander Duncan father of the late Mrs Geo Smith of Bulleen, in a barn in Bulleen Road. The first church was located in Jika Street opposite the current Police Station and the land was purchased by the then Reverend Gunn. The building was of brick and cemented over and was erected in 1845 and lasted until 1901.

The current Church was erected in 1901 after plans by Messrs Blackett and Rankin Architects were submitted. The tender was let to Mr J.A. Bennell at a cost of £1,101. Built of brick in the Early English Gothic style, it was opened on 14 April 1901.

The new Scots’ church building, which is being erected in Burgundy street, Heidelberg, will be completed in the beginning of April 1901; and it has been decided to open it on Sunday, 14th of that month. There will be special opening services. In the morning the Rev. Professor Harper, M.A., B D, will preach, and in the evening the Rev. G. M. Macdonald, M.A., B Sc, will fill the pulpit**.

The cedar seats for the church were donated by Mr James Thomas Donaldson who had purchased them some years earlier from the Chalmers Church East Melbourne.

Organ:

The organ was built in 1929 by the Aeolian Company, New York.

Clergy*:

1843	Rev J Forbes
1843 – 1845	Rev P Gunn
1853	Rev D. McDonald
1853 – 1869	Rev D. Boyd
1869 – 1897	Rev D. Fraser
1898 – 1902	Rev G.M. Macdonald
1902 – 1907	Rev S. Byron
1907 – 1925	Rev A. Hardie
1925 – 1934	Rev D.S. Jones
1934 – 1951	Rev C. Harland
1952 – 1962	Rev J.W.P. Gillan
1962 –	Rev D.WMatthews

* The list may not contain all serving Clergy.

Sarah DendyMonument to Henry Dendy. His Wife Sarah Dendy is buried here, but He and His Son are Buried at Walhalla, in the Goldfields of Gippsland. The monument is decorated with interesting symbols. Why is she here? After these photographs there is a Story of Henry and Sarah Dendy, by Mick Woiwod, that takes the couple from England, to enormous potential prosperity in Brighton, Melbourne and a sad but adventurous tale thereafter.

These symbols are: Thistle / IHS?? / Leaf or Fern.

These symbols are: Two Columns / Olive Branch?? / Leaf or Fern.

These symbols are: Leafy Branch / Bird with Olive or egg in mouth / Leaf with cherries.

These symbols are: Two Columns or Open Book, possibly Bible / Suns Rays like Egyptian / Leaf or Fern.

HENRY DENDY: THE HONEST YEOMAN FARMER WHO LOST HIS INHERITANCE
In 1849 Henry Dendy arrived in Christmas Hills seated next to the Driver John Booker on a dray heavily laden with household effects. John, who together with 138 other agricultural workers, had gained free passage out from England through the efforts of the man seated beside him on the dray. Henry Dendy who’d arrived in the colony seven years previously. Upon landing, he’d handed to a startled Lieut-Governor La Trobe, an order from the home government entitling him to eight square miles of land wherever he might choose in the Port Phillip District.

Dendy was the son of an English yeoman farmer who, upon his father’s death, had sold the family’s farm in order to benefit from a newly introduced ‘ordinance’ designed to encourage emigration to the colonies. ‘Special Surveys’, as they were called, permitted the holder of such an order to purchase eight square miles of land at £1 an acre. Furthermore, it gave him free passage out to the colonies for one approved worker to every twenty of those £1s that he expended on land purchase.
Dendy’s arrival in 1841 caused quite a stir in Melbourne. La Trobe knew nothing of the ordinance! He immediately dispatched a message to Sydney seeking advice from his superior, Governor Gipps, on how best to handle the matter. Gipps, also totally unaware of the existence of Special Surveys, had to make an ‘on the spot’ decision and ruled that Dendy must be given his land, but under no circumstance closer than five miles from the centre of Melbourne. By this time, Dendy had already made his choice of eight square miles (2,068 ha) abutting Melbourne on the Williamstown side. Thwarted by Gipps ruling, he, on the advice of friends, settled, instead, for the same acreage at Brighton, extending four miles inland from a two mile Port Phillip Bay frontage to present day East Bentleigh.

Under the terms of his Special Survey, Dendy then brought out from England, twenty-nine families, and settled them on his estate (together with a further twenty-two single men and women). By 1843, he’d built for his family a two storey brick mansion overlooking Port Phillip Bay. That property alone (well known at the time as ‘Brighton Park’), when sold some years later with its seventy-four acres of orchard and gardenwas described as one of the most desirable properties in the whole of Port Phillip.

Had Dendy been a more astute financial manager, and had he been better dealt with by those within whom he’d placed his trust, the family could have lived out their lives in comfort and ease on their superb unencumbered property. If still existing today, his Special Survey would have encompassed many of Melbourne’s most prestigious southern suburbs. However, it was not to be! The simple man farmer must be seen to have been no match for the glib entrepreneurs operating around Melbourne at the time in the era’s notorious speculative climate. By September 1841, the credulous Dendy had been drawn into a scheme to develop his estate. It saw him sign over one-half of his 2,068 hectares to his adviser, J.B. Were. Then, again, in February 1843, when approached by Were for further financial assistance, he’d foolishly signed himself over to him as guarantor for a further £1,500. Then, when the Were brother’s company failed in December of that year, Dendy was held responsible for claims made upon it by its creditors. Despite costly litigation, the courts ruled against Dendy, and ordered him to recompense Were’s creditors.
Unable to comply with the order, all of his property (including his personal effects, household furniture, and farm implements), were seized and compulsorily auctioned off. Fortunately for Dendy, he’d had the foresight to sign over his smaller ‘Brighton Park’ property to Sarah, his wife, before becoming involved in the aforesaid contracts. Had he not, the Dendy’s most certainly would have lost the entire fortune with which Henry had arrived in the colony less than two years previously. For a year or two the family continued living at Brighton, after which they transferred to Geelong where Henry carried on as a brewer until his purchase of the Christmas Hill Station in 1849.
More than fifty years later, John Booker, one of only three remaining living members of the migrants that Henry Dendy had brought out in 1842, described how he’d carted Dendy’s few remaining belongings out to the Christmas Hill Station, and how in his humble opinion the station ‘was scrub country quite unfit for sheep’. Andrew Ross, who for twenty-five years lived in Kangaroo Ground, and who for the two decades after 1851 served as the local school’s headmaster, later noted in his Reminiscences the quirk of fortune which had seen Henry Dendy, a gentleman who had once held such valuable real estate had later come ‘to occupy a small station in a far from productive part of the bush’.
The station was destined to be the Dendy home for the next four years. Presumably, very much like the Stevensons before him, Dendy ran sheep and perhaps a few cattle. Despite its 9,600 acres (3,878 ha), it was mainly steep, hilly, timbered country with thesole good grazing land along its creek-flats. Despite his reduced circumstances, Dendy somehow managed to keep up appearances. Ross, who came to know him as a friend, was able to remark that the ‘light gig’ which Dendy used to travel to and from his station, was looked upon by his fellow Kangaroo Ground folk as quite a phenomenon.
After he sold the run, Henry established a flour mill in Eltham (1861), where he served also as chairman of the Eltham Road Board District (1858). When his wife Sarah died, he moved to Walhalla, where according to Billis and Kenyon’s Port Phillip Pioneers, he died in poverty. Be that as it may, one old identity of that town totally refutes such an assertion:

Perhaps it was poverty compared with all the money he had inherited and made and lost again, but my recollections of the Dendy household is one of heirlooms, apostle spoons, spade guineas and beautifully cooked meals in plenty.

To the end of his days, Henry Dendy had yearned to be back again on the land growing things but had found Walhalla far too hilly and decidedly lacking in sunlight for the purpose. At the age of seventy-six, we find him writing to an old friend:

I wanted to make a garden, I have been looking for a place for a long time… a few weeks ago I came on horse tracks which I thought might lead me to water. I followed on and found the head of a little gully with an old sawpit and the remains of on old hut of sawn slabs, sun away no door or window the bark rotten and droped off [sic] and the chimney half burnt but a fine spring a few yards from the door. I got a miner’s right and took possession and set about repairing it.

Thus the simple-hearted English yeoman farmer eventually found contentment and meaning in life in the solitude of the Australian bush well away from the burdensome cares that wealth had brought to him.

BLACK THURSDAY WHEN THE SUN FAILED AT NOON
There was, however, one significant event recorded of the Dendy years on the Christmas Hill Station. The year 1850 had been extremely dry, and by the early summer of 1851 the entire colony was tinder dry. On 5 February, fires that had been allowed to burn unchecked in the surrounding hills came under the influence of a hot northerly winds blowing strongly from the inland. A number of properties in the Western District were among the first to come under attack whilst, in the Plenty ranges, other fires that had been left burning quietly for weeks, combined to sweep down into the settled districts. By the early morning of 6 February a fearsome hot wind had whipped such fires as these into life across the colony, strengthening each hour as the morning progressed:

The people of Melbourne took shelter as the thermometer rose to over 110 degrees [43 degrees Celsius] in the shade; dust and gravel whirled outdoors in the glaring heat. No one had ever experienced such heat, and all expected the town itself to spring into flames. They cowered behind shuttered windows while the great wind roared round the streets and the sun’s red eye stared through the murk.

It has been said that the Black Thursday fires raged over an area, some 300 miles in extent from Portland in the west to South Gippsland in the east. Gippsland itself is said to have been in total darkness by one o’clock in the afternoon, whilst, as far away as Gabo Island, hot ashes are reported as having fallen on sailing ships way out to sea. That same day at Forth on the north-west coast of Tasmania, James Fenton, a local farmer, recorded that:

early in the afternoon black clouds of smoke approached. The light of the sun became eerie and a strange silence and stillness descended. The fowls sat on their roost and birds flew about in alarm.

The full extent of the Black Thursday fires continues to be a subject of major debate. Lack of effective communication between the various districts involved makes it impossible for a full assessment of the extent of devastation to stock, crops, forests and wildlife ever to be made. As for its impact on the remaining relicts of this country’s Indigenous people still hanging on in remote bush camps, nothing whatever appears to have been recorded!

The fires that swept down from the Plenty Ranges caused the greatest local loss of life. It was there that George McClelland lost his wife and five young children (only just escaping death himself). It left a further one hundred families in the Plenty district homeless. The front that roared down on the Dendy homestead at Christmas Hill that day formed part of the same conflagration. William Lockhart-Morton (Morton was the husband of Dendy’s cousin, Mary Anne Stone) describes the scene in the following graphic terms:

The only chance which settlers have to save their lives and dwellings in such a conflagration is by the liberal use of water if it is at hand. Mr. Henry Dendy and his family at Christmas Hill Station, up the Yarra, saved their house in this way. A strong spring flowed past the door, and tree ferns and other vegetation gave them some shelter from the showers of burning bark. They thus were able to saturate the roof with water. It was often on fire, but after a long fight it was saved.

Henry and his wife struggle to save their home in Christmas Hills during the Black Thursday fires of 6 February 1851.

The 1851 Black Thursday fire raged on past the Christmas Hill station to destroy all of the worldly possessions of John Lithgow and Robert Blair on nearby Brushy Creek. The pair scarcely surviving with their lives! Caught in the path of the fire, they’d been forced to abandon their bullock wagon laden with 2,000 bushels of wheat to seek shelter in a nearby creek.

The Christmas Hills Story, Once around the Sugarloaf II pp55-59 by Mick Woiwod 2010

Mark SillMark Sill who farmed Sill’s Bend, on Yarra River.

Stanley Brunker VersoStanley Brunker Verso WW1 Soldier, uncle to Jean Verso below.

Jean Verso, Nillumbik Historical Society, Harry Gilham, Eltham District Historical Society, Spot the Dog and Richard Pinn, Nillumbik Historical Society, Graeme Speers, Heidelberg Historical Society, and Dennis Ward behind the Camera, discuss the enormity of Warringal (Heidelberg) Cemetery.

The Shire of Heidelberg’s Great War

A Tribute to those from the Shire of Heidelberg that Fell in the Great War 1914-18

Compiled for Yarra Plenty Regional Library by Brian Membrey

Local Deaths
The Shire of Heidelberg
The Shire of Heidelberg (with the exception of the capital cities of Sydney and Melbourne) was probably unique in Australia in having no less than four hospitals that at various times during the Great War treated wounded or sick servicemen.
Few local residents will probably be aware of the fact, but Warringal Cemetery is classified as an official military burial site by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Warringal Cemetery, Heidelberg
First World War
Commission records list seventeen First World War servicemen that were interred in the Warringal (or Heidelberg) Cemetery.
With just two exceptions of men who died in camp, all died in 1919 or later and after returning from the Western Front – the lateness of the deaths coincided with the establishment of a Military Ward (later Ward 12) post-war to assist with the repatriation of wounded or ill soldiers.
The cemetery’s role appears to have been the designated resting place for local servicemen (“local” extending to Kew and the inner northern suburbs) plus a few with relatives overseas or in distant locations – Coburg’s Pine Ridge Cemetery in Bell Street served a much wider population including many that died while in training at the Broadmeadows or Seymour camps, a total of 175 listed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s records.
Those interred in Warringal were :

ALMEIDA, Henry Aged 33, died 25 November, 1920. He had been a professional soldier at the Queenscliff Barracks for seven years on enlisting, serving initially as Gunner with Siege Artillery Brigade and returned in December, 1916 with pleurisy and was discharged as medically unfit. Despite this, he managed to re-enlist in October, 1917 and served as 1169, Corporal, 36 Heavy Artillery Brigade. He was hospitalised in England with bronchitis and admitted 5 AGH in St. Kilda Road with bronchitis after his return in May, 1919. AWM records do not show the location of his demise, but a Death Notice reveals that it was at the Military Ward of the Austin Hospital. A brother in Ballarat was noted as next of kin.
“ALMEIDA-On the 25th November, at the Austin Hospital, Heidelberg (military ward), Henry (Lob) the beloved husband of Amy Harriett, brother of Florence (Mrs Young, Dunolly), William (Ballarat), Thomas (Deniliquin), and stepfathcr of Charles Lacey, late of Royal Australlan Artillery and 36th Battery, Heavy Siege Artillery, A.I.F. Queensland papers please copy”. The Argus, 26 November, 1920

ANDREWS, Edward Mariner Aged 26, died 19 April, 1921. Served as 3005, Private, 58 Infantry. The circumstances of his demise are not clear as died after the official disbandment of the A.I.F. on 31 March, 1921 and is thus not included in the official casualties. The only report of an illness on his archives was an admission with trench feet in January, 1917 and he returned to Australia as part of the normal repatriation process. Commonwealth War Graves record confirm his burial in Warringal Cemetery. Born London, he nominated an aunt in England as next of kin and was living at Horsham when he enlisted.

ARMSTRONG, Joseph Michael Aged 22, died 11 May, 1915. He was a Private at the A.I.F. Base Depot at Broadmeadows and died in the camp hospital from meningitis. His mother Annie was at 74 Yarra Street, Heidelberg and enquiries by the Repatriation Department post-war as to his father revealed Armstrong was an illegitimate child and his father had never contributed to either the child or his mother’s upkeep. His internment in Warringal was probably because of his mother’s local residence; most that died in either the Broadmeadows or Seymour camps were buried in the Pine Ridge Cemetery, Coburg – the CWGC lists around 175 such graves. (See Heidelberg Honour Roll).

BARNES, Herbert Alexander Aged 29, died 3 July, 1920. Served as BARNES, William James (his father’s givem names) , 6135, Private, 14 Infantry. He contracted tuberculosis while in France and died of the disease after his return. (See Heidelberg Honour Roll). He was single and in Geelong when he enlisted, but by the time of his death, he was married with his widow in Heidelberg

BISHOP, Franklin Hepburn Aged 39, died 17 September, 1919. 2645, Trooper, 13 Australian Light Horse. He was returned to Australia from Egypt early in 1918 suffering from tuberculosis, succumbing to the disease at the Caulfield Military Hospital. He was buried in Warringal Cemetery and his widow was in Barker’s Road, Kew

BUCKLEY, Herbert Aged 42, died 24 May, 1920. 15180, Sapper, 3 Division Signals Company, Australian Engineers. Noted as dying at the Austin Hospital for Incurables, but no indication of the cause of death. He suffered a gunshot wound to the scalp in October, 1917 but returned to depot duty in England before arriving home in July, 1919. He was in Malvern on enlisting.
“BUCKLEY -On the 24th May, at the Military Ward, Austin Hospital. Heidelberg, Herbert, the dearly beloved son of the late Isaac and Susannah Buckley, loved brother of Alice (Mrs Affleck),Sarah (Mrs Forbes), Jim, Amy (Mrs Tomkins),and Allan Buckley aged 42 years. I have fought a good fight”. The Argus, 25 May, 1920

FLYNN, Lawrence Aged 39, died 24 November 1919. 2579, Private, 46 Infantry. He was in and nominated his next of kin in Ireland . He served at Gallipoli for around a month before being returned to Egypt suffering from dysentery and colitis. He re-joined his unit in March, 1916 but was hospitalised on two more occasions; with septic sores to the left hand, and then with boils to the knee and was returned to Australia and discharged in October as medically unfit due to general debility. Flynn died from consumption in the Austin Hospital. He enlisted as a labourer from Heywood.

GIDDENS, Charles Frederick Aged 37, died 29 March, 1920. Served as 1162, Private, 14 Infantry. Giddens was admitted to hospital in Cairo in January, 1916 diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis and returned to Australia in March. He was noted as dying in the Austin Hospital and is included on the AWM Honour Roll, but again there is no record of treatment in Australia. His parents in Kew were listed on embarkation.
“GIDDENS.-On the 29th May, at the military ward, Austin Hospital, and late of the 14th Battalion, A. I. F., Charles Frederick, the dearly beloved son of William and Mary Giddens, of 54 Derbystreet, Kew, loving brother of Ethel (Mrs.Adells), Minnie (Mrs. Eakin), Mabel, Will,Bert, Harold, and Percy (deceased). A patient sufferer at rest. The Argus, 31 May, 1920

GRASS, Forrest Harold (served as GLASS, Jack) Aged 27, died 7 September, 1919. Served as 3032, Driver, 5 Engineers, Enlisted July, 1915 after previously been rejected because of poor eyesight. He returned in April, 1919 after being hospitalised in England for several months with enteritis and influenza. His death is noted on his archive, but not the location. His parents were in nearby Templestowe.

HAMILTON, James Gibson Aged 46, died 17 March, 1921. 4227, Private, 8 Infantry, returned to Australia in September, 1916 and admitted to 11 AGH in Caulfield suffering from neurasthenia (what we think of today as chronic fatigue syndrome (there is a vague allusion to the complaint triggering an ageing process and causing a functional derangement of the nervous system. His mother in Moonee Ponds was listed as next of kin.

HOWE, Francis Martin Aged 40, died 22 November, 1919. He served as 244, Private with the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force in the islands to the north of Australia. He returned from Rabaul in September, 1919 and died at 11 AGH in Kooyong Road just on two months later, the cause not stated, but is noted that he suffered an attack of malaria in August before returning. His mother in Gore Street, Fitzroy was listed as next of kin

OSBORNE Eric Claude Aged 20, died 20 July, 1915. Private, A.I.F. Force Training Depot. He was in training just 14 days before dying of cerebro-spinal meningitis at the Seymour Camp. It was noted he died just 24 hours after being diagnosed with the disease and he was one of 256 serviceman that died locally of the disease between the middle of 1915 and the following year. His parents were at Lower Templestowe.

PORTER, William Stanley Aged 27, died 16 April, 1921. 2652, Private, 60 Infantry. He was noted as seriously ill with a gunshot wound to the left hip and leg in July, 1916. The leg was subsequently amputated and he arrived back in Australia in September, 1917, but again nothing is recorded after his return other than the standard “died after discharge”. His parents were in Abbotsford when he enlisted.

SCHULZ, John Pritchard Aged 32, died 3 December, 1920. Served as 12411, Driver, Australian Army Service Corps Motor Transport. He was noted as suffering from influenza when he returned in March, 1919 and died at the Mont Park Military Hospital. While Mont Park concentrated on patients with psychological disorders, there was a general purpose wing added during the war years.

TIERNEY, Joseph Aged 38, 15 June, 1919. He served as 1989, Private, with the Australian Army Medical Corps at 2 Australian Auxiliary Hospital in England. He was somewhat unusual in that he was South Australian, but enlisted in Melbourne. He died in the Austin Hospital from tuberculosis after being treated in England for the disease. His was one of the few circulars returned for the group that were interred in Warringal and his mother suggested he had served in the Boer War, but there is no record of a Joseph Tierney in Australian records.

WILLIAMS, Stanley Joseph Aged 20, died 20 November, 1915. From Alphington, he is included in both the Heidelberg and Darebin Honour Rolls and he may be the untraced entry of “J. S. Williams” on the Ivanhoe Memorial. Williams was attached to 4 Field Artillery Brigade Reinforcements, but died in the 5th Australian General Hospital in St. Kilda Road after contracting peritonitis and appendicitis whilst in training at the Albert Park camp. He was admitted to hospital on 18 November, 1915 and died two days later.

The remains of one other local serviceman of some fame, Cedric Ernest Howell also rest in Warringal Cemetery.
He was killed in air crash whilst on a flight from England to Australia in 1919 and originally buried in Corfu, Greece, but at the request of the Australia Government, Howell’s remains were later exhumed and brought to Melbourne on the s.s. Brescia, which arrived on 19 April, 1920.
Captain Cecil Howell was buried the following day with full military honors at the Warringal Cemetery, Heidelberg, the cortège attended by a firing party and gun carriage.
Although we have included him in our archives, his death, however, was not attributed to war service and he does not appear either on the AWM Honour Roll or in Commonwealth War Graves Commission records.

FIVE NOTABLE FAMILIES IN THE WARRINGAL CEMETERY HEIDELBERG.

Talk at Watsonia Library for the YARRA PLENTY LIBRARY SERVICE 19 Nov 2013 by David Weatherill, Cemetery Historian.

David Weatherill has been researching for 30 yrs. He has been a Past President of the Genealogist’s Society of Victorian and was on the National Trust Cemetery Trust Advisory Committee until the N.T. dissolved it.
“Cemeteries are microcosms of the Communities that Created them”.
With the smaller Cemeteries it gives you an overview of what that part of society was like.
In some places as you go around, each cemetery is a separate distinct entity area over time e.g. Hunter Valley mine disasters. So you can see what has happened over a period of time.
In the 1800’s infant mortality was very high and you look in six months you can see diphtheria, typhoid, influenza and other diseases sweeping through and taking them out.
So really the cemeteries have a lot to tell us.
* Who the people were that are buried in them. Some of the headstones are magnificent and give you the life histories of the people.
* Where they came from. How successful they were by their memorials, what you want to call them, you get great flamboyant memorials. The big ones can be erected, not necessarily from the family, they are from people within the area. Or groups within the area simply to show their standing in the area. Simply to commemorate them.
* What they believed in. Most cemeteries are divided up into Religious Areas so you can ascertain that.
* And in some cases some indication what their life has been like.
* How they died. Diseases, Disasters etc….Coburg has a couple from the Sunshine Rail Disaster.
* Snapshot over time of what life was like in the community e.g. Princetown Cemetery and the Lochard Disaster on the Great Ocean Road. It is a Government Cemetery with many other people buried.
Waiting to be discovered in the landscape are:
* Skill in carving. Organ, in Hamstead Cemetery, England, Walter Lindrum’s grave is Billiard Table in Old Melbourne Cemetery.
* Detail and Meaning of Words, Inscriptions.
* Flora and Fauna and layout – some with remnant landscapes and rare species.
* Architecture of Buildings and Grounds – Chapels.
* History of the Area and People, and a Place for Quiet Contemplation.
* Heritage Overlays (all or part) Heritage Victoria or Local Council or Shire. Groups of Trusts
Some Cemeteries are now Lost or becoming Lost. There are 9000 burial places in Victoria, incl. lone graves. DW researching for 30 years and still finding new ones each month.
EARLY CEMETERIES.
* 1803 Collins Settlement at Sorrento. 5 graves. 29 Deaths known.
* 1826 Corinella HMS Fly (plus 2 ships) Several known settlers deaths but do not know where they are buried. No marked graves.
All prior to 1853 when Death Certificates issued.
* 1836 Flagstaff Hill also called Burial Hill. There is a plaque.
* 1837 Old Melbourne Cemetery was set up. 9000 buried under the carpark of the QV Market. At the time it was assumed Melbourne would not encroach on the Cemetery.
* 1850 Melbourne General was commenced and it is Full.
* Point Ormond…Disease and illness, Cemetery.
* Point Nepean…Disease and illness, Cemetery.
* Point Gelibrand at Williamstown and so forth.
* St. Andrews Church of England Brighton, became our first big Cemetery.
* Portland North came in 1844
* Yarra Bend Asylum Cemetery came in 1844 with the setting up of the Asylum and Hospital (the only major Hospital in Melbourne at that time). There were 1000 burials and they were not shifted so there are several hundred burials under the Yarra Bend Golf Course.
All prior to 1853 when Death Certificates issued.
* 1852-53 Hawdon St, Heidelberg commenced.
Act 17 Vic 12 Gazetted 1854 Melbourne General and all other Cemeteries operating before were approved.
* 1854 Warringal Heidelberg Gazetted.
* 13th Sept 1853 Trustees of Episcopalian (Anglican Church) petitioned the Colonial Secretary of Victoria for a new Cemetery in Heidelberg.
* It was granted on 6th October 1853 and was 2 acres for the Cemetery. The Anglican Section is located just left off the Wyora Road entrance.
* The Cemetery Opened 6th Oct 1854.
TRUSTEES
* Frederick Ahman Powlett
* Amious McPherson
* Paul De Castella
* The 1st meeting was held in 1855. The Trustees were unpaid.

FIRST BURIAL
Margaret Thompson aged 27 years 1853.
Mary Ann Ashton was found on a separate sheet of paper that listed of burials before 1858 when the General Register started.
In 1980 Heidelberg CC became the Trustees, and included Greensborough and Hawdon St Cemeteries. With the only income from burials gradually the Cemetery fell into disrepair and was subject to vandalism.
Now under Banyule CC there are 16,300 recorded graves including paupers (free in accordance with the act of 1854) plus ashes.
SOME NOTABLE BURIALS.
* TA Oldmeadow on top of Oldmeadow Family Memorial. Died 1st April 1875 “For ten years worked amongst the Chinese”. (Actually buried in Melbourne General Cemetery. So he is not buried here, but remembered on the family headstone).

* John Worrell. Played Football for Fitzroy and Carlton. Cricket at Carlton CC. President

* Harold Oldmeadow, Wesleyan Minister

* Henry Budd, Surgeon, died 1855 and young Son

* Richard Ewell, Medical Practitioner, died 1891 Founder of the Medical Board of Victoria, Coroner for a long time – particularly on inquests on patients in asylum.

* Walter Kochoo. First Chinese AFL/VFL Footballer, played with Carlton. Had unmarked grass grave. Plaque laid.

* Rupert Colman Curnow MLA Ivanhoe, died 1950. Was in the 8th Light Horse in the Middle East WW1, wounded and was a Soldier Settler, Grazier, lived in Heidelberg from 1934 but retained his Corryong interests. Upper Murray shire councillor 1933-1935. State Council Member RSL 1939-50, State Executive 1941-47, Vice-President 1945-47.State Repatriation Board 1942-1946. During WW2 Official Visitor Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital. Represented Ivanhoe 1947-1950. MLA. Liberal Country Party. Additional information from Wikipedia.

* William Caldwell Hill MP (born 14 April 1866 – died 15 November 1939), was a long serving member of the Australian House of Representatives.

Born at Burnt Creek, near Dunolly, Victoria, Hill was educated at state schools before working as a railwayman, station master and wheat farmer. On 20 September 1919, at the by-election caused by the death of Albert Palmer, he won the House of Representatives Division of Echuca as a Victorian Farmers’ Union candidate. In 1920 he helped form the Country Party. From 8 August 1924 to 29 November 1928 he was Minister for Works and Railways in the Bruce–Page government. During his period of office he commenced the standardisation of the railway gauges by the construction of the North Coast railway line from Kyogle, to South Brisbane, the construction of the rail line from Oodnadatta, South Australia, to Alice Springs by Commonwealth Railways, the introduction of a Federal aid road scheme—which provided funding to the states for road construction—and the building of the Hume Dam, which he promoted as president of the inter-governmental River Murray Water Commission. He retired from Parliament on 7 August 1934, because he was unwilling to sign a pledge to vote in parliament as instructed by his party, and he was succeeded as the member for Echuca by John McEwen, future leader of the Federal Country Party. Hill died at Nar Nar Goon, survived by his wife Bella and by six children. Additional information from Wikipedia .

* John McEwan, born in Scotland, died 1855. John McEwen 43, Gardener/ Botanist and wife Hester 40 of Dumfries, Scotland arrived on 27th October 1839 on the David Clark, with 8 children. He established the first Nursery and Market Gardens with John Arthur and his sons. He was very involved with the Botanical Gardens.

* James Williamson Pool (enlisted underage using another name for WW1, won the Military Medal). He came home and took over a farm and died in a Tractor accident.

NOTABLE FAMILIES AND INDIVIDUALS IN WARRINGAL CEMETERY

FREDERICK ARMAND POWLETT
born 1811
died 9th June 1865
Born in England. His father was a Minister of Religion. In 1837 Powlett accompanied Sir John Franklin to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). He moved to the Port Philip District and became the Police Magistrate.
In Nov 1938 Powlett helped form the Melbourne Cricket Club and became Founding President three years later.
In 1840 Appointed Commissioner for Western Port District. And when gold was discovered he was the first Gold Fields Commissioner in Victoria.
He was a well-respected person in the Colony and a confidant of Governor Latrobe and became Latrobe’s agent for his properties. He was a keen sportsman and huntsman.
He even fought a duel to protect his reputation in 1851 (even though they were illegal).
He married Margaret Thompson 23rd April 1851 and they had one daughter, Horatia Frances Janet Powlett in 1852. His wife died 1853. Daughter sent back to England in 1857, where she lived until she died in 1937.
He was sent to be the Police Magistrate in Kyneton in later years. He set up the Kyneton Rifles too, one of the small military groups in the Colony before Federation.
He died on 9th June 1865 aged 56 years and was buried next to his wife (first buried in the Cemetery 1853) in the Thompson /Powlett Grave.
Powlett Trustee of Cemetery.
Powlett St runs along the east side of the Cemetery.

On the 1837 Plan of Melbourne F A Powlett is shown having two properties.

1853 Argus quote p6 ???
1865 Gippsland????
Question from the Audience: When did the Hospitals start? The Austin started in the 1880’s as the Austin Hospital for Incurables.
In addition, with the Austin Hospital and other adjoining Hospitals there were many Pauper burials. Paupers were buried in tree line in common graves. Warringal couldn’t find relatives.
[Prior to subdivision and the Austin Hospital Powlett Street was a droving track to cattle yards at the north side of the Heidelberg Railway Station – Personal Communication from Mrs Betty Trewarne, Past President Heidelberg Historic Society, Refer also to early Photographs]

JAMES ROSS
born 1805
died 1863
James Ross was born in Glasgow in 1805 and came to Launceston Tasmania in 1828. Flora Ross nee McMullen, his wife emigrated in 1829 after the arrival of their third child.
James was attached to John Batman on the Rebecca when he settled Melbourne. He and Flora were recorded as living in a wattle and dab house with two lodges and a workshop in 1836. But it is not recorded on the Survey Map. His occupation was carpenter in the new town of Melbourne.
James and Flora had 6 children. Flora became desperate, left alone for long periods of time, and took a musket and shot herself in the workshop. Flora died in 1837 leaving 5 children and was buried in Flagstaff Burial Ground.
In 1847, James Ross then re-married Mary Ann Hazard nee Irwin and moved to Cape St, Heidelberg. While building the house they lived in a tent on the open corner of Burgundy Street and Greensborough Road (Rosanna Road). He was occupied as a Brick maker, Carpenter, Undertaker, Coffin maker. He made coffins for other Cemeteries also.
James died on 15th October 1863, and is buried with Jane a Daughter by his second wife on 5th November 1863, and his Grandson James Ross on 27th November 1901, who according to the Argus of the day drowned rescuing horses, belonging to a Mr. J.H. Edwards, in a lagoon near Templestowe.

THOMAS WENTWORTH “TOM” WILLS
born 19th August 1835.
died 2nd May 1880.
Thomas Wentworth “Tom” Wills (19 August 1835 – 2 May 1880) was a 19th-century sportsman who is credited with being Australia’s first cricketer of significance and a pioneer of the sport of Australian Rules Football.

Born in the British colony of New South Wales to a wealthy family descended from convicts, Wills grew up on properties owned by his father, the pastoralist and nationalist Horatio Wills, in what is now the Australian State of Victoria. He befriended local Aborigines, learning many aspects of their culture.

At the age of 14, Wills was sent to England to attend Rugby School, where he became captain of Rugby’s cricket team, and played an early version of rugby football. After Rugby, Wills represented the Cambridge University Cricket Club in the annual match against Oxford, and played in first-class matches for Kent and the Marylebone Cricket Club. An athletic all-rounder with devastating bowling analyses, he was regarded as one of the finest young cricketers in England.
Returning to Victoria in 1856, Wills achieved Australia-wide stardom as a cricketer, captaining the Victorian team to repeated victories in inter-colonial matches. He played for many clubs, most prominently the Melbourne Cricket Club, for which he served as honorary secretary.
He wrote a Famous Letter that called for something to do during the winter months.
In 1858 he called for the formation of a “foot-ball club” with a “code of laws” to keep cricketers fit during the off-season. After founding the Melbourne Football Club the following year, Wills and three other members codified the first laws of Australian Rules Football. He and his cousin H. C. A. Harrison spearheaded the new sport as players and administrators.

He married Sarah Teresa Barber, in Castlemaine. There were no children.

In 1861, at the height of his fame, Wills joined his father on a trek to Queensland to establish a family property. Two weeks after their arrival, Wills’ father and 18 others were murdered in the largest massacre of European settlers by Aborigines in Australian history. Wills survived and returned to Victoria in 1864. He continued to play football and cricket, and, in 1866–67, coached and captained an Aboriginal cricket team—the first Australian XI to tour England. In a career marked by controversy, Wills straddled the divide between amateur and professional cricketers, and was frequently accused of bending rules to the point of cheating. He was no-balled twice for throwing in 1872 and mounted a failed comeback four years later on the brink of the birth of Test cricket, by which time his sporting glory belonged to a bygone era that seemed “quaint and old fashioned”. Psychological trauma from the massacre was worsened by his alcoholism. Now destitute, Wills was admitted to the Melbourne Hospital in 1880, suffering from delirium tremens, but shortly afterwards escaped and returned to his home in Heidelberg, where he committed suicide by stabbing a pair of scissors through his heart. The Coroner was Dr Ewell 3rd May 1880.

Wills fell into obscurity after his death, but since the 1990s, he has undergone a resurgence in Australian culture. He was an inaugural inductee into the Australian Football Hall of Fame, and is commemorated with a statue outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground. In modern times he is characterized as an archetype of the fallen sports hero, and as a symbol of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The claim of an Aboriginal influence on Wills’ conception of Australian football has been debated in the media and among historians. According to biographer Greg de Moore, Wills “stands alone in all his absurdity, his cracked egalitarian heroism and his fatal self-destructiveness—the finest cricketer and footballer of the age.” Additional information from Wikipedia.

LOUISA FAWKNER
born 1877
died 1915.
Louisa’s parents were Percival Fawkner and Maria McNamara. Her father deserted the family and her mother resorted to prostitution. Louisa was made a Ward of State at the age of 6 and placed in an Orphanage. She was indented and sent to Daylesford and five months later went blind in one eye. So she was sent to the Asylum and School for the Blind. Here she became a friend of Tilly Ashton.
Louisa was one of the first volunteers to transcribe books into braille. Being a Catholic Louisa devoted time to creating Catholic Braille Writers Association and by 1915 had written 120 books.
Louisa was one of the Founders of the Villa Maria Society, a Hostel for Blind Adults.(And they were the people who were trying to find her grave).
Louisa died at the Austin Hospital of cancer aged 38 in 1915.
In 2007 it was realized that her grave had no headstone, only grass, so a new headstone was made with a plaque with the following was placed on it.
“One sees clearly only with the heart” from the Little Prince.

CEDRIC ERNEST HOWELL

Cedric Ernest “Spike” Howell DSO, MC, DFC was an Australian fighter pilot and flying ace of the First World War.

born 1896
died 1919

Cedric Ernest Howell was born on 17 June 1896 in Adelaide.
The family moved to Melbourne, to a house named “Myalla Eaglehawk”, in Hawdon St, Eaglemont. He attended Melbourne Grammar 1909-1913 and was in the 49th Prahran Cadets Battalion with the rank 2nd Lieutenant by 1914 also he had trained to be a Draftsman.
Howell enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1916 for service in the First World War and on 1st January embarked with the 16th Reinforcements, and was posted to the 46th Battalion on the Western Front.
During November 1916, he was accepted for a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps and was shipped to the United Kingdom for flight training. Graduating as a pilot, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and posted to No. 45 Squadron RFC in France during October 1917; two months later the unit sailed to the Italian theatre.

He was married to Cecily on 14th September 1917.

Howell spent eight months flying operations over Italy, conducting attacks against ground targets and engaging in sorties against aerial forces. While in Italy, he was credited with shooting down a total of nineteen aircraft. In one particular sortie on 12 July 1918, Howell attacked, in conjunction with one other aircraft, a formation of between ten and fifteen German machines; he personally shot down five of these planes and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Howell had previously been awarded the Military Cross and Distinguished Flying Cross for his gallantry in operations over the front. This was achieved in the hardy work-horse of the RAF, the Sopwith Camel. He was posted back to the United Kingdom in July 1918.
After the War, Capt. Howell and Sgt. George Henry Fraser, Engineer/ Navigator entered an England to Australia Air Competition worth £10,000. Howell and Fraser flew a Martinsyde A1. The plane crashed 10 December 1919 into the sea near the island of Corfu, Greece and both were drowned. They were buried on the Island. Howell’s mother requested that they be brought home to Australia and Captain Howell was buried with Full Military Honours in Warringal Cemetery on 22nd April 1920 at 3pm.
Cecily his wife from England and sister Violet Mackenzie from Adelaide also attended the funeral.
He was not in service when died so there is no Commonwealth War Graves Headstone.