Digital Site Study

In the previous activity you imagined the event of a cemetery in your local area being destroyed to make way for shops and houses. It is hard to imagine that could happen, but in 1901 the State Government of NSW did exactly that with the Devonshire Street Cemetery.

A vast cemetery once sprawled across the land where Central Station now stands. The Devonshire Street Cemetery opened in 1820, but the city’s major burial ground filled up quickly in the decades following, only to become overgrown and abandoned. In January 1901, when the state government announced its intention to clear the cemetery, well over 30,000 bodies were buried there.

View Source 2, Present Sight [i.e. site] of City Railway. The Devonshire Street Cemetery Sydney, 1903 / by W. H. Howes which is dated 1903 — after the order to clear the cemetery.

1. Complete a see, think, wonder thinking routine for this painting.
2. Is this painting a primary or a secondary source?
3. Discuss: How would the families and descendants of those buried in the Devonshire Street Cemetery feel about what has happened to the cemetery?

View Sources 3 and 4, the photographs and epitaph inscription book  compiled by Arthur and Josephine Foster. Then select one headstone from the photos and inscription from the book that tell the story of that individual’s life.

Create a mind map that breaks down what we learn about these individuals from their headstone or inscription record. Information might include some of the following:

• Name
• Date of birth and death
• Age
• Religion
• Occupation (job)
• Family information
• Nationality

When the cemetery was to be removed to make way for Central Station, descendants of those buried there were given two months’ notice to decide where their forebears’ remains would be reinterred. Those not claimed would be transferred to Bunnerong Cemetery, an extension of Botany Cemetery.

Listen to Source 5, the Audio guide from the exhibition Dead Central, Chapter 6: Exhumation and excavation.

Take notes as you listen, then imagine you are one of the following:

• a person working on the Devonshire Street Cemetery site to exhume and relocate the graves of those buried there
• the descendant of someone who is buried in the Devonshire Street Cemetery (choose a person from the previous activity).

Write a letter to a friend or relative about your thoughts and feelings to do with the process of exhumation and your concerns relating to this. What stories have you heard in the media about the Devonshire Street Cemetery? What do you think about the Central Station project?

Discuss how the site of the Devonshire Street Cemetery has changed over time — since before the arrival of the First Fleet, to its use as the major cemetery for the colony through the 19th century; and today, as a bustling, busy transport terminal.