Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries

 There's no other store like David Jones and it seems that for the Jones family there is no other Cemetery than Rookwood – well for almost all of the immediate family that is. Although David Jones may not be a "forgotten" Australian, it only seems fitting to remember the man who founded Australia's premier Department store now celebrating it's 185th anniversary - the actual anniversary was last week on 24th May. Today's blog lists a little about the man himself and prominent members of his family including those that took the reins of the company. THE DAVID JONES DYNASTY David Jones was born in March 1793 in Wales, the son of Thomas Jones, a farmer and his wife Nancy. Aged 15 he left home and was apprenticed to a grocer in Carmarthen. At 18 he was offered and accepted the management of a general store in Wales and in 1813 married Catherine Hughes who died a year later in childbirth. He married Elizabeth Williams in 1822 who also departed life young fou...

  Islands attract ships and some of those ships are lost. There have been many shipwrecks in the seas surrounding Australia and today's blog relates to one of New South Wales' worst peace time maritime disasters – during a terrible year of such disasters - with a link to Rookwood. THE KEILAWARRA DISASTER OF 1886 In December 1886 the 784-ton steamship the Keilawarra, built in Scotland eight years prior, was heading from Sydney to Brisbane loaded with food stocks, casks of various alcoholic beverages, tobacco, paint and special cargo including two bulls and a heifer, a box of bees and two racing horses. There were also passengers and crew totalling about 80 under the command of Captain Buttrey, a man with some twenty years' service with the Australian Seam Navigation Company. Heading in the other direction was the smaller steamer the Helen Nicoll under the direction of Captain Fraser carrying far fewer passengers and crew. SS Keilawarra - NSW Department of Environment -...

 Part two of my blog regarding mothers relates to one whose crime during late Victorian times still sends shock waves through society. The crime itself was more widespread than ever reported due to its very nature. Welcome to the seedy world of "baby farming". The Baby Farmer - "The Crime Wire" - with thanks What was a woman, who was not supported by her family, to do with an unwanted child in that time when illegitimacy was a sin of considerable shame? There was infanticide, the workhouse or to pay a stranger, a 'baby farmer', to look after the baby for her in an unregulated "industry". The latter solution seemed the best one for many women and some disreputable people strapped for cash, particularly during the downturn in the 1890's saw an opportunity to gain some easy money. Before I introduce you to the mother, the subject of this blog, let it be known that most of us have skeletons in our family trees, people who led questionable lives tha...

  As we approach Mothers Day I've been in a reflective mood about mothers in general. So much so that I have decided to prepare this blog over two weeks; the first part as an ode to “mothers” who may or may not have given birth but displayed the nurturing values we associate with the best of mothers. The second part will be devoted to a mother whose behaviour towards her “children” still sends shock waves through us today. For today's blog I wish to pay homage to two women who gave their lives to tend many. ELLEN DAVIS BLACKER Little is known of Ellen’s early life, but she was born sometime around 1878 and was known as Ellen Davis Willets. Ellen arrived in Lake Cargelligo in the Central West of NSW before the outbreak of WW1 and was a Bush Nurse. At the time it was an isolated regional town and was one of the first three centres in NSW to be served by a Bush Nurse. Nurse Willets settled in well and by 1914 she had married John Blacker of a local pioneering family. Bus...

 As a member of the Helping Hands gardening group, part of the volunteer group that is the Friends of Rookwood, I often get my hands dirty. Our small group meet regularly and work on various areas of the original part of the Cemetery pulling out weeds, tending to some rose garden areas, clearing areas of dead agapanthus and tidying up (or what I call "resurrecting") some graves from a jungle of overgrowth.  In real estate it's all about location and I'm afraid it's the same in death as well. The areas that are closest to the No. 1 Mortuary Station where the Funeral Train ended its journey in the grounds of the Necropolis is where you will find the grandest monuments and vaults. That relates to all the denominations designated at the time of the design of the Cemetery, Anglican, Catholic, Jewish, Independent, Presbyterian and Wesleyan. No.1 Mortuary Station located in the Cemetery - Wikipedia At the moment we are concentrating on liberating some of the monuments in...