Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries

  We are coming to the end of 2024, and this blog is one of reflection upon all the blogs that have been published under “ Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries”. This year I have highlighted many people who gave their lives for others; those that turned their lives around and benefitted others; many tragic unfortunate deaths and of course those that went off the deep end and shocked us all! The most popular blog this year was the one devoted to Euphemia Bridges Bowes . Mother of eleven children, wife of a Wesleyan minister performing all the duties associated with her role as well as establishing the First Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and other organisations. She worked constantly until she died - at the age of 85! A woman we should all be proud of who until a few months ago had fallen through the cracks of time. Another woman that caught your eye was Ada Hannah Coffill, a woman who completed the full funeral parlour experience as being the first Australian born woman to receiv...

 As you meander amongst the headstones in the older part of Rookwood there are many graves that mention -"accidently drowned, accidently killed etc." and it reminds us of a time when Occupational Health and Safety did not exist. Employment, especially the manual work that attracted a higher wage, came with many risks to health as well as and life and limb.  Today's blog is about a slightly different kind of accident, one still quite shocking but one that is a little more unusual. WILLIAM MOON  William Moon was born in Brightling Sussex England, on the 5th of November 1829, one of sixteen children to Jesse Moon and his wife Ann. Remarkably only two children died in infancy, the rest living to adulthood.   His father, Jesse, came to Australia with his family, his wife and eight children, as an assisted immigrant in 1839 onboard the vessel the Prince Regent. William was ten years of age, and the family settled into life in the Redfern area.  William married Ha...