From Cemetery to Park

As family historians, we spend a lot of time wandering around cemeteries trying to find those extra details about our ancestors and to pay respect to people we never knew. Old cemeteries can be fascinating places and in my research I have found two that are used as parks today, both connected to the one family but on opposite sides of the world.

Bunhill Fields Burial Ground is located in Islington, London. It is grade 2 listed because of its historical significance and is maintained by the City of London as part of its Open Spaces program for the public to enjoy. The name Bunhill is thought come from "Bone Hill" as when it closed in 1854, it was thought to have been a burial site for over a thousand years.

Bunhill Fields Burial Ground

In Plot 59 at Bunhill Fields are buried Cornelia (nee Stites) Galbreath who died on 19 June 1800 at the very young age of 33yrs, also her son John Stites Galbreath, who died on the 26 March 1843, aged 52 yrs and six of John's children who died in infancy. This illustrated the high child mortality rate that existed in 19th century London. Of every 1000 children born, nearly half of them died before reaching the age of 2. Luckily some of John and his wife Ann's children did survive. One in particular Ann Jane, a dressmaker, came to Australia.

At St. Mark's in Collingwood on 16 December 1856, Ann Jane Galbreath married widower, Francis Scammell. Francis had been in Melbourne since 1842, a very early arrival. In the 1860's Francis continued that pioneer spirit by moving his family to Mulgrave. When Ann and Francis died they were buried at Oakleigh Cemetery.

Oakleigh Pioneer Memorial Park

Oakleigh Cemetery when first opened in 1859 was in bushland, one of the first public cemeteries in Victoria, now it sits in the centre of a residential and shopping precinct beside a major arterial road. Burials stopped in 1960 and it has been renamed the Oakleigh Pioneer Memorial Park as a testament to the early settlers of the area. It too is a park for the public with a picnic area and children's playground and winding paths amongst the trees.

It is great to see these cemeteries being re-purposed, but with great respect to the deceased and open for the public to enjoy.

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