Skip to main content
  1. The Dictionary of Sydney
  2. Multimedia
  3. Detail of map showing different denominational ...

Detail of map showing different denominational burial grounds in the Devonshire Street Cemetery 1845

By
Frances Webb Sheilds
Contributed By
City of Sydney Archives
[CRS1155, City of Sydney (Sheilds), 1845 (detail)]

Browse

  • Browse
    • Artefacts
    • Buildings
    • Events
    • Natural Features
    • Organisations
    • People
    • Places
    • Structures
    • Entries
    • Multimedia
    • Subjects
    • Roles
    • Contributors
Connections
Appears in
Death and dying in nineteenth century Sydney Devonshire Street Cemetery
Subjects
Cemeteries Maps
Places
Devonshire Street Cemetery Haymarket Surry Hills
Buildings
Carters' Barracks Christ Church St Laurence

Footer

  • Home
  • About
  • Copyright
  • Contact

Footer Secondary

  • Contribute
  • Donate

Sheilds, Frances Webb

Railway engineer and surveyor who completed a survey of the City of Sydney in February 1845.

City of Sydney Archives

The City of Sydney Archives holds items from as early as 1842 when the Municipal Council of Sydney was established, and manage, preserve and provide access to more than 1 million items, including documents, photographs, maps, plans and data. The collection consists of City of Sydney corporate archives, items collected from the community relating to the City of Sydney local area and published reference material. Use the links to go directly to the City of Sydney's website.

Death and dying in nineteenth century Sydney

In the newly settled colony, cemeteries were an important cultural institution in which the social order could be established and a person's identity within the community could be defined. Through the trappings of the funeral, statements of status, class and religion were constructed and inscribed upon the cemetery landscape.

Devonshire Street Cemetery

Sydney’s Devonshire Street Cemetery, as it has come to be known, was a cemetery of firsts. Not only was it the first time the Surveyor-General grouped a set of burial grounds together; Devonshire Street was also the first time attempts were made to regulate burials and order the cemetery landscape. In use from 1820 until the 1860s, it was Sydney’s second major cemetery.

Cemeteries

Maps

Devonshire Street Cemetery

full record »

Burial ground established in 1820 on the outskirts of colonial Sydney to replace the earlier burial ground on George Street. It was the city's main burial ground until the opening of Rookwood Cemetery. It officially closed in 1867, although people who had family vaults or previously purchased plots were still being buried there until much later. Also referred to as the Sandhills Cemetery due to its proximity to sandhills, it was resumed in 1901 to enable the building of Central Railway Station.

Carters' Barracks

full record »

Barracks on Pitt Street, running along what is close to contemporary Eddy Avenue, comprising several buildings built to house convict gangs working as carters on the brick fields. It was also used as a boys' barracks and, from 1835 to 1843, as a debtors' prison. Part of the complex was later used as a training facility for women, part of the women's refuge run by Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Another building was used as the Police Barracks. The buildings were demolished by 1901 to make way for Central Railway Station.

Christ Church St Laurence

Anglican church in George Street which became a centre for Anglo-Catholic worshippers from the 1880s.

full record »

Surry Hills

full record »

Inner-city suburb located immediately to the south east of the central business district. After explosive growth in the second half of the nineteenth century it came to be seen as a slum, then experienced gentrification from the late 1960s.

Haymarket

Urban locality in southern part of central business district. Named for the markets of the nineteenth century, it is still home to Paddy's Market as well as Chinese, Thai, Korean and Indonesian communities.

full record »