Exhibition information
Sat, 25 May 2019 to Sun, 3 May 2020
Past Exhibition
Free
On site
A vast cemetery once sprawled across the land bound by Sydney’s Elizabeth, Pitt and Devonshire streets — 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.
Thousands of people travel through Central Station every day, but how many know what once lay beneath it?
Hear curator Elise Edmonds in conversation with Cassie McCullagh, ABC Radio Sydney
The Burial Files Podcast
Thousands of people travel through Sydney's Central Station every day, but how many know what once lay beneath it? Get ready to embark on a journey back to 19th century Sydney, to rediscover a place you thought you knew.
Episode 1: Hidden History
Human remains were recently discovered at Central Station. How long have they been there?
Listen on: iTunesSoundcloud the podcast website
Meet the curator
Elise Edmonds
Elise is a senior curator at the State Library of New South Wales. With a background in Australian history and Museum Studies, Elise has worked with the Library’s maps, pictures and manuscript collections; acquiring, writing and promoting these to a variety of audiences. In 2009 she received a staff fellowship to research and scope the Library’s First World War collections. This led to curating several exhibitions highlighting the Library’s nationally significant First World War collections; Life Interrupted: personal diaries from World War I in 2014 and Colour in Darkness: images from the First World War in 2016.