Skip to main content

Saturday’s Newspaper Snippet: Wagra Cemetery

Ever since my visit to Wagragobilly Cemetery (see here) I have been wanting to find out more about the cemetery and the people buried there and today’s snippet helps me to do just that. In 1900 the government of the day decided to resume 65 acres that it had allocated to Aboriginal people near Brungle.  It also decided that the cemetery that Aboriginal people had established for themselves would not be permitted to have any future interments there and that determined that they should be buried in the unsectarian portion of Wagra Cemetery (Wagragobilly cemetery is refererred to as Wagra Cemetery with great frequency in this era) five miles away instead.  This must of devasted the local Aboriginal community!  Not being able to be buried in a cemetery you had established as a community and had family members in is heartbreaking and very unfair.  Wagragobilly cemetery today does not even have clearly defined portion markers, so I don’t know at present where these burials took place but at least I know they are there now!  I plan on doing a series of posts on this cemetery and the people buried in it in the future, as it has captured my interest and I want to know more. The Wagragobilly Cemetery can be found on the map of the Parish of Wagara below.  

Source:
ABORIGINES BOARD. (1900, March 19). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article117031064
Transcript:
The Under-Secretary for Lands write stating that the Minister had approved of an additional area of 65 acres for the aboriginals at Brungle being resumed, and that in future no interment should be permitted in the cemetery which the aboriginals have established east of section 24, the unsectarian portion of Wagra Cemetery, five miles distant, being available for such interments. It was decided to inform the local board to that effect.

Source: New South Wales. Department of Lands (1965). Parish of Wagara, County of Buccleuch : Lands Districts of Gundagai & Tumut, Gundagai Shire (8th Ed). Dept. of Lands, Sydney.  Retrieved from https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/20890452


Source: New South Wales, Department of Lands (1965). Parish of Brungle, County of Buccleuch : Land Districts of Gundagai & Tumut, Tumut Shire (7th Ed.). Dept. of Lands, Sydney.  Retrieved from 

Wagragobilly Cemetery

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Kendall Children.

I started this post a while ago and was going to finally finish and post it yesterday however our four grandchildren came over and I got sidetracked.  Our grandchildren range in age now from six down to one;  they are so full of life (each of them lights up a room when they enter it) and we feel extremely blessed to have them in our lives.  After spending the afternoon researching this post, their arrival made this tragedy even more poignant for me and so I appreciated their company even more than usual and hugged them a bit tighter too!  This morning I woke up to a cold, wet and windy Wagga day and the thought of three little girls out in August weather like this, in light weight dresses with no shoes or jumpers impacted on me even more. Those poor babies! One of the girls was found still clasping her doll that she had carried with her over the whole tragic journey. When my husband and I were looking around the Wagga Wagga Monumental Cemetery some time ago we came a...
9 comments
Read more

My First Fleet Connection - Mary Turner (aka Mary Wilkes/Wilks)

My 5th Great Grandmother Mary Turner (also known as Mary Wilks/Wilkes) is my earliest known and documented Australian relative.  She was tried at Worcester on  5th March 1785 and sentenced to seven years. Mary arrived on the ship Lady Penrhyn   in 1788.   It seems the 5th of March was not an auspicious trial date for Mary in 1785 or later in 1789!   On the 5th  March 1789 she was tried for stealing six cabbages from the garden of William Parr, she was found guilty and sentenced to 50 lashes.  Later in March 1789 she also was in trouble for her testimony in the trial of  Royal Marines accused of stealing from the government stores  (six of them were found guilty and executed) in which it was believed by some that she had perjured herself.  Mary was sent to Norfolk Island in 1790 on board the ship Sirius .  Apparently she stayed on Norfolk Island until 1793 when she returned to Port Jackson on board the ship Kitty .   Her de fact...
6 comments
Read more

Time for a happy dance! Well kind of .....poor Catherine!

Brickwall knocked down at last!  Catherine Rhall was murdered by her partner James Baker Worldon on the 14th February 1855 at Beechworth.  The Trove articles do involve my 4th Great Grandparents James Baker Worldon and Catherine Rhall!  I guess the family tree book will need updating now ;) I looked up the following record from the Public Record of Victoria and bingo the details match my ancestors records.  Catherine Rhall's fate is now known at last, she was murdered by her partner and he was only sentenced to two years imprisonment for it and by the look of it was released early in 1856!  I also found out he used the alias Milbank, which will give me new avenues for future research. Public Record Office of Victoria Series title: Central Register of Male Prisoners Sub-Item title: Worldon, James; (Milbank); (Jas Baker Worldon): No. 2265 Sub-Item number: Page 199 Date range: 1854 Public access: Open Format: Digital Source: Public Record ...
15 comments
Read more