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Government and General Orders concerning the closure of the Old Burial Ground and the opening of Devonshire Street Cemetery 22 January 1820

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National Library of Australia
[Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 22 January 1820, p1 via Trove]

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Devonshire Street Cemetery
Subjects
Anglican Cemeteries Death and Dying Public Health Religions and Beliefs Sanitation Urban sprawl
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Devonshire Street Cemetery Old Burial Ground
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Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser
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St Philip's Anglican church York Street

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National Library of Australia

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.

Death and Dying

Cemeteries

Religions and Beliefs

Anglican

Sanitation

Public Health

Urban sprawl

Devonshire Street Cemetery

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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.

Old Burial Ground

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Principal cemetery for the town of Sydney between 1792 and 1820. Originally located on the outskirts of the city, by 1819 the cemetery was full and had become 'offensive to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood'. It was closed. on 28 January 1820, and replaced by the new Devonshire Street Cemetery. Some memorials were removed to the new cemetery. After its closure, the site became neglected and dangerous. In 1869 many of the remaining graves were exhumed and monuments removed to other cemeteries when the site was redeveloped for the Sydney Town Hall, but remains continue to be found by archaeologists.

Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser

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First newspaper published in Sydney, from 5 March 1803 until 20 October 1842. 

Originally printed in a lean-to shed at the back of Government House, the newspaper moved to different premises in Macquarie Place in 1808 and then to a building on lower George Street in December 1810. In 1824 the printery moved again to a larger two storey building further south on George Street on the corner of Charlotte Place. 

St Philip's Anglican church York Street

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Anglican church built in 1855 on the site of the first and second St Philip's. Constructed of sandstone and slate in Victorian Academic Gothic style it is centre of the oldest parish in Australia.