Cemeteries / Burials Guide

Overview

The Reverend Samuel Marsden remarked that:

At the first establishment of the colony for a long time no piece of ground was set apart for a Burial place. ^[1]

The Old B​urial Ground

The Old Burial Ground (now occupied by the Sydney Town Hall) was used between September 1792 and 1820, when it officially closed. Its replacement was the Sandhills Cemetery (Devonshire Street Cemetery), which later became the site of Central Railway Station.

By the 1840s there were concerns about overcrowding and over the next twenty years a number of alternative locations were considered.

Rookwood

In 1862 the government purchased 200 acres of land 'near Homebush on the Railway Line…' for use as a general cemetery. The first registered burial took place at the Rookwood Necropolis in 1867 ^[2].

Where to find burial records

We hold records of burials at the following cemeteries: Devonshire Street (re-interments); Camperdown; Mudgee; and Wollongong (Old Roman Catholic Cemetery). See below for a description of the records. 

The Council of the City of Sydney holds a downloadable inventory of burials at the Old Sydney Burial Ground, which was compiled using the St Phillip’s Parish Registers and other primary and secondary sources, such as diaries, newspaper reports and government records.

Enquiries about other cemeteries should be directed to the relevant trust, board, council or other body that administers the burial site. Researchers interested in cemetery transcriptions can check on their availability in the publication by Killion & Garnsey referred to at the end of this guide.

Records of dedications and administration of burial grounds

In addition to the records listed in this guide, information on the dedication and administration of burial grounds, including maps and particulars of the land set aside for this purpose can be found in our catalogue amongst the records of the Surveyor General, Colonial Secretary and the Lands Department. Parliamentary Papers are another useful source, as many cemeteries were set up under Acts of Parliament.

List of main record series

Attorney General

Series	Title	Dates
NRS 333 [5/7704-7705]	Special Bundles, Letters Received Establishment and control of public cemeteries in Sydney	1835-1881

Colonial Secretary

Series	Title	Dates
NRS 905	Main series of letters received Includes applications for burial licenses for interments at St Jude's Randwick, St Stephen's Camperdown and the Devonshire Street Cemetery between 1867 and 1880	1867-1880
NRS 906	Special Bundles Look for references to cemeteries and burial grounds in the item lists (by year range) in the Colonial Secretary Guide »	1826-1982

Botany Cemetery Trust

These records relate to re-interments from Devonshire Street Cemetery following its resumption to make way for the development of Central Railway Station.

Series	Title	Dates
NRS 15514 (Reel 3722)	Index to the re-interment register	1 Jan-31 Dec 1901
NRS 15513 (Reel 3721)	Re-internment register	1 Jan-31 Dec 1901

Department of Lands (now Land and Property Management Authority)

Series	Title	Dates
NRS 8285	Dedication registers	1842-1979
NRS 8292	Cemeteries register	1906-192

Camperdown Cemetery

Series	Title	Dates
NRS 8297	Photographic prints of headstones, monuments and plans of Camperdown Cemetery. See the item list of surnames (only) on headstones »	c.1951-1958
NRS 8298	Plans of Camperdown Cemetery	1949-1954

Mudgee Cemetery

Series	Title	Dates
NRS 8299	Register	c.1845-1885

Wollongong Cemetery

Series	Title	Dates
NRS 8311	Typescript extract from 'Register of the Names of and other relevant information in respect of persons buried (in the) Old Roman Catholic Cemetery, Crown Street, Wollongong'	1805-1914

Public Works and Services

Series	Title	Dates
NRS 12419	Special Bundles Haslem's Creek Cemetery, 1867 [2/895 part] Singleton Cemetery, 1889 [2/895 part] Sydney Devonshire Street Cemetery and Benevolent Society appropriation for railways, 1878, 1881-84 [2/896B] Sydney - Devonshire Street - Burial Ground, 1890 [2/895 part]	1867; 1878; 1881-1884; 1889, 1890

Devonshire Street Cemetery Board (see also Botany Cemetery Trust)

When Central Railway Station was being built on this site in 1901, about one third of the monuments and remains of those interred in the former burial ground were relocated to metropolitan and country cemeteries.

Series	Title	Dates
NRS 12555	Copies of letters sent	5 Mar-17 Apr 1901
NRS 12556	Reports on the restoration of graves	Jan-Mar 1901

Further reading

• Johnson, Keith A. and Sainty, Malcolm R., Sydney Burial Ground 1819-1901 (Elizabeth and Devonshire Streets) and History of Sydney's Early Cemeteries from 1788, Library of Australian History, Sydney, 2001.
• Killion, Martyn C. H. and Garnsey, Heather E., Cemeteries in Australia: A Register of Transcripts, 3rd ed., New South Wales, Australian Federation of Family History Organisations, 1994.
• Weston, David A., ed., The Sleeping City: The Story of Rookwood Necropolis, Society of Australian Genealogists in conjunction with Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1989.

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Footnotes

[1] Keith A Johnson and Malcolm R Sainty, Sydney Burial Ground 1819-1901 (Elizabeth and Devonshire Streets) and History of Sydney's Early Cemeteries from 1788, Library of Australian History, Sydney, 2001, p. 11.

[2] David A. Weston, ed., The Sleeping City: The Story of Rookwood Necropolis, Society of Australian Genealogists in conjunction with Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1989, pp. 13-14.