Citation
Carnarvon Cemetery, 1877-19..? Tasman Peninsula Chronicle No 5, Nubeena, 1990
Outline
A short background to the cemetery at Carnarvon (Port Arthur) and the stories of some of those buried there and the families who remain in the district.
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Excerpt
Just outside Port Arthur’s entrance is the cemetery which, with the coming of free settlement to the peninsula after 1877 replaced that of the penal colony on the Isle of the Dead.
While holding cherished memories for descendants, the cemetery is also an historical record of the early phase of Carnarvon, as Port Arthur was then renamed.
The headstones provide a public record of those interred, some carry more detail than most 20th Century memorials. Elizabeth Blackwood (wife of the surveyor Archibald Blackwood) who died on October 21st 1891, aged 63 years, was “Born at New Forest, England”.
Cemeteries also contain unmarked graves.
The Carnarvon Cemetery is unique in having a record of all those buried from 1883 to 1906, including a plan of the burial sites. This detail was collated in a “Registrar of Burials” in 1908 by P.C. Prothero, “a gentleman of Carnarvon”.[1] A “gentleman”, Phillip Protheroe lived at Port Arthur from 1905 to 1916.[2] Plots and pathways were laid out which “had hitherto been placed irregularly”.
The register records for these years those whose graves were only shown by a “mound” and who are not covered by a headstone register,
Athol (Snakey) Wellard, aged 89 years, recalls “Old Man Protheroe” living in the Accountants House, Port Arthur.[3]
The Wellards lived next door in the Old Post Office, next to the Church[4] where the family ran a coaching service as well as the Post Office.
The deaths recorded in the register indicate that, although the Tasman Peninsula had moved from prison to free settlement, the underlying causes had not changed.
Timber-getting accidents, drowning, infant deaths (the biggest group), child-birth, consumption and bronchitis plus heart degeneration reveal a sad continuity.
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Footnotes for this excerpt
[1] Register, Tasman Council, Nubeena
[2] Post Office Directory
[3] Now the Education Centre
[4] Once the Parsonage
Index
Accountants House, Port Arthur, 1
Ballanie, Janet (Mrs Thomas), 2
Ballanie, Thomas, 2
Black Jack, 4
Blackwood family, 3
Blackwood, A, 4
Blackwood, Archibald, 1, 2, 3
Blackwood, Elizabeth (Mrs Archibald), 1, 2
Blackwood, J.T., 4
Bloomfield, William, 4
Boden, F.A., 1
Bream Creek, 4
Brown, E., 4
Burdon, H., 4
Burdon, Jacob, 4
Burdon, W. Jnr, 4
Burdon, William, 4
Carlton, 2
Carnarvon, 1
Carnarvon Hotel, 3
Chesterman, H., 4
Chesterman, Henry, 2
Clougha, 3
Commandants House, 3
Connors, baby, 2
Connors, Sarah, 2
Cookney, Geo Chas, 1
Cowan, Joseph Henry, 3
Curran, Peter, 4
Dear, George, 4
deaths, 1
Durgess, E., 4
Durgess, E.E., 4
Evenden, J., 4
Frerk family, 3
Gangell, Isaac, 4
Gangell, W., 4
Grosvenor, Catherine, 2
Harris, Thos Geo, 1
Impression Bay, 4
Johnson, J.M, 4
Junior Medical Officer’s House, 2
Junior Medical Officer’s House, Port Arthur, 2
Kingston, George, 4
Kingston, J., 4
Kingston, J.W., 4
Lawless, Annie, 2
Little family, 3
Long Bay, 4
Lord, Alfred, 4
Lowe, James, 4
Mason, Annie, 3
Mason, Francis, 3
Mason, Heather, 3
Mason, Tom, 3
Mawle, J.C., 2
McArthur, Andrew, 1
McGinnis, Allan, 1
McGinniss family, 3
McGinniss, Joseph, 2
McGinniss, Mary Ann(Mrs Joseph). See Spaulding, Mary Ann
McGinniss, William, 2
Moss, Henry, 2
Mt. Communication, 4
Munday, S. jun, 4
Munday, S., sen, 4
Newmans Bottom, 4
Old Post Office, 1
Paul, G., 4
Perkins and Steiglitz, 4
Price’s Bay, 4
Protheroe, Phillip, 1
Rogers family, 3
Rogers, Alexander, 4
Saltwater River, 4
Seaborne, George, 2
ships
Forfarshire, 2
Slopen Main, 4
Smith, Florence Amelia, 2
Smith, John, 2
Smith, William, 4
Sorell, 2
Spaulding, Mary Ann, 2
Spaulding, W., 4
Stacey, James, 4
Stacey, John, 4
Stacey, Robert, 4
Stacey, Walter, 4
Storey, G.W.B., 4
Sykes, John, 1
Tatnell and Riley, 4
Tatnell family, 3
Tatnell, Thomas, 4
Tatnell, Vy, 4
Tatnell, W., 4
Trenham family, 3
Trenham, Henry R., 3
Trenham, J.H., 3
Trenham, Samuel H., 3
Trentham, 3
Valley Farm, 4
Visiting Magistrates’ House, 3
Wall, T.L., 1
Wedge Bay, 4
Wellard family, 1, 3
Wellard, G. H., 4
Wellard, George, 3
Wellard, Samuel Nicholas, 3
Williams, Joseph, 4
Wilmot Vale, 4
Woranawich, J., 4
Worledge, George, 4
Wright, Francis B., 4