Early Snippets - Nathalia Cemetery - 1880-1915

Author and historian Lyn Franklin has compiled a new book on the Nathalia Cemetery. It is titled Early Snippets Nathalia Cemetery 1880-1915.
The book is available at Nathalia Printers for $15. Below is a copy of the introduction from the book.

Introduction
It has been said that a town
which has no record of
Its history is like a man who
has lost his memory.

The earliest extant records of the Minutes of the Nathalia Cemetery Trust begin in 1916, the previous Minutes having been lost over time. However it is possible to get a glimpse of the early activities of the Trust from reports in the Riverine Herald, the Numurkah Leader and the Nathalia Herald. Other sources of information derive from the death certificates of the early internments in the Cemetery also some surviving Cemetery Caretakers’ Account Books held by the Nathalia Historical Society and Government Gazettes. Records are scarce for the years 1914 and 1915.

Very early burials took place on the squatting runs such as the Yielima pre-emptive right and later at the Yalca and Barmah cemeteries, the forerunners of the Nathalia Cemetery. The settlers, as opposed to squatters, began arriving in the Nathalia district from December, 1873. From that time up to the time that land was temporarily reserved for a Cemetery in January 1881, burials from Nathalia mostly took place at either Shepparton or Echuca with some infants being buried on the farms. It was an alarming outbreak of Diphtheria in May and June 1880 attended by Dr. Fitzgerald, the public Health Officer based in Shepparton who ordered all precautionary measures be taken including the closure of Barwo West, Narioka and Nathalia Schools, which would have been the catalyst for a local cemetery.

John Bouverie Hussey Tanner, the local chemist, was appointed Deputy Registrar for births and deaths in Nathalia District in June 1879 and it is his submissions to the Registrar which show that burials did take place in the Barwo Cemetery (Nathalia Cemetery) as early as December 1880 although the plot of 10 acres bounded by Cemetery Road, Garonne, Grinter and Tuckett Streets was only gazetted as being reserved as a temporary site on January 12th, 1881.

Early Trust Members were faced with the daunting task of establishing the Cemetery without all the conveniences of modern living - there was no easy access to the cemetery, no made roads, no water on the block, no toilets, rabbits were rampant, weeds prolific and all digging would have been done by hand to name just a few obstacles.

Over time the Cemetery, at first unfenced and subject to invasion from stock, was later fenced with a post and rail fence; post and rabbit proof wire fence; and later a white picket front fence with black finials which was demolished in 1961 and replaced with the fence you see today.

It became apparent from 1887 onwards that low lying areas of the Cemetery were subject to flooding particularly the Presbyterian Section, so much so that many Presbyterian internments took place in the higher Anglican section. Levee banks were built after 1974 floods, raised after the 1993 floods and were over topped in places in 2012.

Credit is due to the many Trustees and Caretakers over the years who served the community culminating in the pleasant grounds we wander through today.

Lynette E Franklin
January 2016