Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park

Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park, Eastern Suburbs Crematorium and Botany General Cemetery (aka Botany Cemetery), is a cemetery and crematorium on Bunnerong Road in Matraville, New South Wales, in the eastern suburbs district of Sydney, Australia.

Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park
The Crematorium Building, opened in 1938.
Details
Established10 January 1888[1]
Location
Military Road, Bomborah Point
CountryAustralia
Coordinates33°58′28″S 151°13′39″E
Size29 acres 2 roods 27 perches (12.01 ha)
WebsiteEastern Suburbs Memorial Park
Find a GraveEastern Suburbs Memorial Park

Land was dedicated as a cemetery site in 1888, with the first interment recorded at Botany Cemetery on 21 August 1893. The Bunnerong Cemetery (opened in 1888), and the Eastern Suburbs Crematorium (opened 1938) were merged with Botany Cemetery in 1972. There are more than 65,000 people buried there. A memorial park, Pioneer Park, is also within the grounds.

History and management
Memorial Garden
Memorial
Pioneer Memorial Park Plaque

The cemetery was created as Bunnerong Cemetery in 1888, in order to accommodate unclaimed remains from the Devonshire Street Cemetery. It was merged with the Botany Cemetery (opened 1893[2]) in 1972.[3]

When the Botany Cemetery and Crematorium Act 1972 came into effect on 1 September 1972, Botany Cemetery and the Eastern Suburbs Crematorium were managed by the Botany Cemetery Trust and the Eastern Suburbs Crematorium Trust respectively.[4] This act was repealed by the Cemeteries and Crematoria Act 2013, which came into effect on 24 October 2014 and created the Cemeteries and Crematoria NSW agency, which governs all cemeteries and crematoria in NSW.[5] The Chairman of the Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park Board from 1 January 2005 to 3 August 2012 was the former police chief inspector and Mayor of Waverley, John Douglas Morrison.

The cemetery is managed by Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries NSW (officially "Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Land Manager"), consisting of Woronora Memorial Park and Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park, which replaced the Botany Cemetery Trust and Eastern Suburbs Crematorium Trust upon gazettal on 3 August 2012.[6][7]

Eastern Suburbs Crematorium

Designed in 1937 in the Inter-war Art Deco style by architect Louis Leighton Robertson of Louis S. Robertson & Son, architects, and built by Lipscombe & Price, master builders of Bowral, the crematorium was praised as "dignified in classic lines, the design will be relieved by flutings of the columns and moulded panels".[8][9][10] Robertson also designed crematoriums in a similar style at Woronora (1934), Kembla Grange (1955), and Beresfield (1936).[11][12][13][14]

The crematorium was officially opened on 8 May 1938, by the local Member of Parliament for Botany, Bob Heffron, who later served as Premier of New South Wales and was buried in the crematorium grounds on his death in 1978.[15][16][17]

War graves

There are many graves commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and maintained by the Office of Australian War Graves in locations spread throughout the Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park. The Botany General Cemetery section contains 157 burials: five Commonwealth burials of the First World War and 150 burials of the Second World War. There are also two Dutch Second World War burials maintained on behalf of the Dutch War Cemetery Organisation (Oorlogsgravenstichting).[18] The Crematorium section contains 31 burials of the Second World War, comprising 30 Australian and one British burial.[19] These include five Royal Australian Air Force servicemen killed in an Avro Anson crash at RAAF Richmond in December 1939.[20] The remains of four Japanese sailors killed and recovered from the May 1942 Attack on Sydney Harbour were cremated and stored in the columbarium of the Crematorium until they were able to be returned to Japan by the returning Japanese Minister, Tatsuo Kawai, in August 1942.[21][22]

Pioneer Park
New Graves Over Pioneer Memorial Park in Botany Cemetery

Pioneer Park contains historic headstones which were relocated from Devonshire Street Cemetery in 1901 to make space for Central railway station.[23] At that time, thousands of graves and 2825 tombstones of the first settlers in Australia were moved to the new cemetery at La Perouse, named Bunnerong Cemetery. In 1976, the Botany Cemetery Trust removed a large number most of these monuments by creating a new, low maintenance lawn area. The remaining 746 headstones were reinstalled in concrete strips, unrelated to the graves below. The new lawn was named Pioneer Memorial Park. In May 2016 a series of statues were installed in this section to commemorate the First Fleet, with 12 of the 746 monuments in the park recording people who arrived on the First Fleet.[24]

Notable interments
Arthur Stace's grave.
  • Albert Burge (1889–1943), early rugby league and rugby union player[25]
  • Barney Dalton (1891–1929), former Eastern Suburbs rugby league player and gangster who was aligned with Kate Leigh during the 1920s "razor wars"
  • John Dacey (1854–1912), Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly (1895–1912), Minister and namesake of Daceyville
  • James Dooley (1877–1950), Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly (1907–27), and Premier of New South Wales (1921, 1921–22)
  • Bill Dunn (1877–1951), Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly (1910–50) and Minister[26]
  • Jock Garden (1882–1968), Member of the Australian House of Representatives (1934–37), trade unionist and founder of the Communist Party of Australia[27]
  • Bob Heffron (1890–1978), Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly (1930–68) and Premier of New South Wales (1959–64)[28]
  • Bede Kenny (1896–1953), 1917 recipient of the Victoria Cross
  • Clarrie Martin (1900–1953), Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly and Attorney General (1941–53)[29]
  • Joseph Maxwell (1896–1967), 1918 recipient of the Victoria Cross
  • Arthur Stace (1885–1967), former soldier famous as the Eternity pavement scribe
  • Edward Milner Stephen (1870–1939), Alderman of the City of Sydney (1900–27), NSW Supreme Court judge (1929–1939)[30][31]
  • Ernest Tresidder (1875–1951), Mayor of Randwick, Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly and Alderman of Randwick and City of Sydney councils[32]
  • Blair Wark (1894–1941), 1918 recipient of the Victoria Cross
  • Kate Leigh (1881–1964), Sydney Gangster involved in the Razor Wars of the 1920's and 1930's.

References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park.
  1. "Government Gazette Notices". New South Wales Government Gazette. No. 29. New South Wales, Australia. 10 January 1888. p. 212 – via National Library of Australia.
  2. "Botany Cemetery". The Dictionary of Sydney. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  3. "Bunnerong Cemetery". The Dictionary of Sydney. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  4. "Botany Cemetery and Crematorium Act 1972 No 6" (PDF). AustLII. Australasian Legal Information Institute.
  5. "Cemeteries and Crematoria Act 2013 No 105". Legislation.nsw.gov.au. NSW Government. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  6. "Board Members and Senior Management". Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  7. "Establishment of reserve trust" (PDF). Government Gazette of the State of New South Wales. No. 80. New South Wales, Australia. 3 August 2012. p. 3628. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
  8. "New Works". The Sydney Morning Herald. New South Wales, Australia. 18 May 1937. p. 3. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  9. "Botany to Have Crematorium". The Daily Telegraph. New South Wales, Australia. 20 April 1937. p. 8. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  10. "New Crematorium". The Daily Telegraph. New South Wales, Australia. 4 May 1937. p. 10. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  11. "Building and Construction – Woronora Crematorium". The Sydney Morning Herald. New South Wales, Australia. 30 May 1933. p. 4. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  12. "New Crematorium for Woronora General Cemetery (Syd.)". Construction and Real Estate Journal. New South Wales, Australia. 7 June 1933. p. 8. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  13. "Crematorium at Kembla Grange". South Coast Times And Wollongong Argus. New South Wales, Australia. 12 July 1954. p. 9. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  14. "Newcastle Crematorium –newspaper=Newcastle Morning Herald And Miners' Advocate". Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate. New South Wales, Australia. 3 August 1935. p. 18. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  15. "Botany Crematorium". The Sydney Morning Herald. New South Wales, Australia. 9 May 1938. p. 6. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  16. "Crematorium Opened at Botany". The Labor Daily. New South Wales, Australia. 9 May 1938. p. 4. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  17. "Heffron Opens Crematorium". The Labor Daily. New South Wales, Australia. 9 May 1938. p. 5. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  18. "Botany General Cemetery =". CWGC – Find Cemeteries. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  19. "Eastern Suburbs Crematorium, Botany". CWGC – Find Cemeteries. Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Retrieved 4 July 2020.
  20. "Last Tribute by Comrades". The Daily Telegraph. New South Wales, Australia. 20 December 1939. p. 8. Retrieved 5 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  21. "Naval Honors at Burial of Submarine Crews". The Advertiser. South Australia. 10 June 1942. p. 1. Retrieved 5 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  22. "Naval Honors for Jap Sailors". The Daily Telegraph. New South Wales, Australia. 9 June 1942. p. 2. Retrieved 5 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  23. Johnson, K.A. and Sainty, M.R., Sydney Burial Ground 1819–1901 and History of Sydney's Early Cemeteries from 1788. Library of Australian History, Sydney 2001.
  24. Melissa Seiler (19 May 2016). "First Fleeters Memorial opens at Botany Cemetery 229 years after voyage". The Daily Telegraph.
  25. "Former Football Star Cremated". The Daily Telegraph. New South Wales, Australia. 7 January 1943. p. 15. Retrieved 5 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  26. "State Funeral To-day For W. F. Dunn". The Sydney Morning Herald. New South Wales, Australia. 12 July 1951. p. 2. Retrieved 5 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  27. "'Jock' Garden dies". The Canberra Times. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 2 January 1969. p. 8. Retrieved 5 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  28. "Former Premier dies". The Canberra Times. Australian Capital Territory, Australia. 29 July 1978. p. 3. Retrieved 5 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  29. "Funeral of Transport Minister". Glen Innes Examiner. New South Wales, Australia. 7 September 1953. p. 1. Retrieved 5 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  30. Rutledge, M. "Stephen, Edward Milner (1870–1939)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISSN 1833-7538.
  31. "Late Mr. Justice Stephen". The Sydney Morning Herald. New South Wales, Australia. 1 May 1939. p. 13. Retrieved 4 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
  32. "Noted Owner Dies". The Sun. New South Wales, Australia. 9 March 1951. p. 19. Retrieved 5 July 2020 – via National Library of Australia.
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