Waverley Cemetery
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The Waverley Cemetery opened in 1877 and is a major cemetery at Bronte in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. Waverley Cemetery is a self funding fully operational cemetery. Offering earth burial and cremation options.
It is noted for its largely intact Victorian and Edwardian landscape nature and its huge number of white Italian marble monuments. Waverley Cemetery conducts funerals everyday except Sundays.
Interment options include earth burial and cremation memorials, Mausolea are also popular. It is in a spectacular scenic location on the top of the ocean cliffs. The cemetery is a self funded business and relies on continued burial and cremation interments. To date over 86,000 interments, both coffin burial and cremation have taken place in the 50,000 allotments.
Although not a tourist attraction as such Waverley Cemetery has quite a few celebrities, actors, writers, artists, and political leaders buried there and is often used as a dramatic location for filming work.
Special guided tours are offered during the year by the cemetery management and the volunteer Friends group. The Friends raise money for specific restoration works to some monuments.
The Cemetery business has been in operation since 1877 and was devised along similar lines to Père Lachaise in Paris and General Cemetery Companys' Kensal Green Cemetery in London. Mr Martin Forrester-Reid is the current and 6th Cemetery Manager.
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[edit] Historical Context
The need for a cemetery in the Waverley area was discussed as early as 1863. In 1866, a delegation of representatives was sent to the Minister of Lands to talk about the proposal and when Waverley Council agreed to have a cemetery in its area so long as it "incurred no cost in doing so" in 1868, £1200 was provided by the government as a kick start.
Waverley Cemetery started with an initially purchase of five acres along Trafalgar St in 1875. Over the next two years, fences were built, trees planted and trenches laid. The first internment occurred in the afternoon of the 4th August, 1877. By 1894, the cemetery had grown to its present size: forty-one acres bounded by Trafalgar, Boundary and St Thomas streets. In 1893, a 'sinking fund' was established to try and plan for the upkeep of the cemetery in times of lean income.
Originally, Waverley Cemetery was seen as a choice location for family graves of the well-healed and influential of Sydney’s early society. It was viewed as a special place where the opportunity to secure a site was valued more highly than at any other cemetery. Today, the cemetery is still fully functioning. According to Bronwyn Kelly of Waverley Council, the cemetery manager “has adopted a pro-active approach to enhance what is now a “boutique-style” cemetery product”. Traditions from the early days have been maintained, with all graves and memorials still prepared by hand. An increase in demand for monumental allotments has occurred since the 1990s and as a result, the cemetery is regaining some of its previous importance to the people of the Sydney. Each year there are 190 burials, five film shoots take place and 36000 visitors come through the main gate.
As the cemetery moves towards the future, it is facing a major funding crisis. $700000 is required each year to run the cemetery, and this cost will only be sustainable until space runs out. Also, $10 million is urgently required to repair roads, stabilise monuments and combat constant vandalism. One proposal that is in keeping with its Funeral tradition has been the construction of a pavilion with cremation facilities; however this has been vehemently protested by some local residents and councillors.
[edit] Historical Significance
1. Waverley Cemetery acts as an open air history lesson of the last 131 years. It contains the graves of many people who shaped Australia and its development, so it is recognised as a place to express thanks for so many excellent deeds done by so many great Australians. People who are buried in the cemetery include: Henry Lawson, one of Australia’s most famous poets; Jules Françoise Archibald, founder of The Bulletin and benefactor of the Archibald portrait prize and the Archibald fountain; gold medal swimmer Fanny Durack; George and Charlotte Sargent of Sargent’s Pies; Premier Sir James Martin, after whom Martin Place is named; and aeronautical pioneer and aviator Lawrence Hargrave.
Unlike books, newspaper clippings or other electronic resources, the cemetery serves as a 24/7 physical record of the lives of these Australians. Through recent monument restorations managed by the cemetery, visitors and families are now able to appreciate the significance of the lives of their relatives to a greater extent than ever before, better ensuring that they will be remembered by many future generations to come.
The cemetery’s 50,000 allotments are also proving invaluable to the family historian because they provide an unrivalled record of the details of many Sydneysiders who have come to rest there over the past decades. Additionally, the graves of many less well known people who helped to characterise Australian society can be found at Waverley. For example, the grave of “Nosey Bob,” the NSW executioner from 1875 to 1904 is located there. The cemetery also accommodates the grave of George Freeman, “one of Sydney’s leading criminals” as stated by the NSW premier of the time.
2. The cemetery’s graves and monuments contain records of major events involving Australia, especially those with a military association. This is significant because it is another way by which these events can be remembered even when the last of the people involved die.
The cemetery contains over 200 war graves from various past conflicts. Inside the main gates is a memorial to the military forces of NSW which houses the remains of several officers killed in an 1891 explosion at Middle Head. There are over 11 US Civil War veterans interred there too.
One major event which has been well documented within the cemetery is the Fenian Rising of 1867. The Irish Martyr’s Memorial, which took two years and £2000 to construct, is a memorial to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for Ireland’s independence. It contains the names of Irish patriots who died in Australia and overseas from 1798 to 1981.
3. Waverley Cemetery is significant to Australian history in that it showcases exceptional examples of masonry and funerary art, dating back from the Late Victorian period through to current fashions and trends.
Waverley cemetery is noted for its quality monuments, including statues ranging from classic statues and angels to period Victorian columns and drapery. The predominant materials that were used in the cemetery are white marble and sandstone.
A recent local politician Malcolm Turnbull (stating the obvious) has said that the cemetery “contains wonderful examples of 19th century funerary art of a kind never to be repeated.” The 19th century cemetery landscape remains full of charm and character and has been remodeled many times to respond to changing expectations of the client families. Most notably when cremation gardens were introduced in 1915. This is important because Waverley Cemetery is able to act as a reference point for other cemeteries which are currently facing heritage issues themselves.
4. Waverley Cemetery is set in a unique environment. Because of this, it has become Sydney’s pre-eminent cemetery and the only one to offer “the beauty of a traditional cemetery by the open ocean.” (Martin Forrester-Reid, Cemetery Manager)
The dramatic hillside necropolis is located on the cliffs of Bronte, one of the most beautiful and visited coastal domains in Australia. It has commanding views of Bondi Beach, Coogee Bay and the Pacific Ocean. This natural beauty is furthered by the fact that it has remained fully operational for over 130 years with new interments everyday and justly is a sacred place to many Australians who descend from those resting there.
[edit] Use in TV & film
The earliest known motion picture filmed at the cemetery was the 1976/7 Itallian/Australian production The Pajama Case Girl, an odd forensic tinged tale of love and betrail based on a true story, also the early Mel Gibson film Tim was shot there. Baywatch used the cemetery while filming its Australian movie length espisode, and Home and Away buried one of their loved characters at Waverley in 2004. Notable recent films include Dirty Deeds.
