Melbourne General Cemetery
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The Melbourne General Cemetery is a large (43 hectare) necropolis located 2 km (1.25 miles) north of the city of Melbourne in the suburb of Carlton North.
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[edit] History
The cemetery was opened on 1 June 1853, and the Old Melbourne Cemetery (on the site of what is now the Queen Victoria Market) was closed the next year.
[edit] Architecture
The grounds feature several heritage buildings, many in bluestone, including a couple of chapels and a number of cast iron pavilions. The gatehouses are particularly notable.
[edit] Famous burials
Three Australian Prime Ministers have headstones in the Melbourne General Cemetery: James Scullin, Sir Robert Menzies and Harold Holt. Holt's stone is a memorial as his body was never recovered after he disappeared at sea.
The tomb of famous Australian explorers Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills (Burke & Wills) is also located in the cemetery, with an inscription reading "Comrades in a great achievement and companions in death."
Also buried here is Sir Isaac Isaacs, the first Australian-born Governor General and John Pascoe Fawkner, one of the founders of Melbourne.
Walter Lindrum, a prodigious billiards player, has a distinctive tombstone in the shape of a billiard table.
Patrick Hannan, who was the discoverer of gold at Kalgoorlie in Western Australia has a memorial in the northern part of the Cemetery.
Sir Redmond Barry, the Acting Chief Justice who sentenced Ned Kelly to hang and was instrumental in the foundation of the Royal Melbourne Hospital (1848), the University of Melbourne (1853), and the State Library of Victoria (1854) is also buried in the northern part of the Cemetery.
[edit] External links
- The Necropolis Trust: administrators of the Melbourne General Cemetery
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