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...

 On the Literature cruise I recently attended we were privileged to listen to the words of Nick McKenzie, the award-winning journalist who with another award-winning journalist, Chris Reason, won the "defamation trial of the century", an historic Federal Court lawsuit brought by decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith. It was judged that four of the six murder allegations in Afghanistan presented to the court by the journalists in defence of their earlier reporting were substantially true.   For the final NEW Rookwood blog, I wanted to end the year with a true hero. One who continued to be a hero long after he hung up his uniform.  JOHN WOODS WHITTLE John was born on the 3rd of August 1883 on Huon Island Tasmania, one of seven children to Henry Whittle and his wife Catherine. He enlisted as a private in the Tasmanian Contingent during the Second Boer War. He reached South Africa in 1901, saw action in the Cape Colony and returned to Tasmania in 1902 and soon after joine...