Camperdown Cemetery

Camperdown Cemetery is a historic cemetery located on Church Street in Newtown, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The cemetery was founded in 1848 and was for twenty years the main general cemetery for Sydney, with the total number of burials being about 18,000. Many people who were important to the early history of colonial Australia are buried there. It is the only one of Sydney's three main early cemeteries that still exists.

As well as historic monuments, the cemetery also preserves important elements of landscape gardening of the mid-19th century, and examples of native flora, which are now rare in the built-up inner city. St Stephen's Anglican Church is located within the present bounds of the cemetery. The site, with St Stephen's Church, is listed by the Heritage Council of New South Wales and the National Register as a site of national importance.

Camperdown Cemetery is associated with numerous sensational stories, several reputed ghosts and a murder. It is used regularly for historical and genealogical research. Because of its historical importance and convenient location, it is also a venue for excursions by schools and historical societies. Camperdown Cemetery is valued by the residents of Newtown as providing a major greenspace located in the immediate vicinity of a busy commercial centre. In a densely populated area of small terrace houses without substantial gardens, the cemetery functions as a recreational area and a venue for many family and social activities.

Camperdown Cemetery is a walled 4-acre (1.6 ha) portion of a mid-19th century cemetery, originally of nearly 13 acres (5.26 ha). It contains the most significant elements of the original landscape plan, which are the sexton's lodge, the gateposts, the original carriageway known as Jamison Avenue, a circular driveway known as Broughton Drive and a number of trees planted in the mid-19th century. This remaining section of the original cemetery contains about 2,000 tombstones and other memorials and monuments of which many came from the resumed area outside the wall. Many of the monuments were erected to families or individuals who are famous for their part in the history of 19th-century Australia. The monuments are mostly in Sydney sandstone, predating the fashion for marble memorials. A small number of the later monuments are in marble or granite. One of the largest memorials, that to the Barker family, was brought from Scotland. About 90% of the monuments are the work of a local mason, John Roote Andrews, and his family. Within Camperdown Cemetery stand the Cemetery Lodge (1848), St Stephen's Anglican Church (1871–78), and the St Stephen's Rectory (1910).

The trees include a Moreton Bay fig (Ficus macrophylla) and a number of oaks (Quercus robur) that were planted in 1848 and are the oldest trees in the Marrickville district. The dominant species of tree in the cemetery are brush box (Lophostemon confertus), which were planted in the 1960s and 1970s. The other species include several large spreading blackwoods (Acacia melanoxylon), a row of Canary Island palms (Phoenix canariensis) along one side of Jamison Avenue dating from the 1930s, a grove of Chinese elms (Ulmus parvifolia), two large African olives (Olea africana), lemon-scented gum (Corymbia citriodora), Melaleucas, a Port Jackson Cypress pine (Callitris rhomboidea) and two stands of giant bamboo.

Several large areas of the cemetery were covered with topsoil and planted with exotic grasses to create mown lawns in the 1950s and these have been maintained, and in places planted with bulbs. At the rear of the cemetery native grasses continued to grow, making this the largest inner-city remnant of the native flora of the original Turpentine–Ironbark forest that once covered the area. The major species is kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra), but there are a number of other species present including Dianella.

Camperdown Cemetery was founded in 1848 and consecrated in 1849. It was founded as an Anglican General Cemetery, accepting the dead of all denominations, but burying them with the rites of the Church of England. Previous cemeteries in Sydney were the so-called Old Burial Ground of 1792, in George Street on the site of the Sydney Town Hall, and the New Burial Ground (1819–68) in Devonshire Street on the site of Central railway station, Sydney.

The cemetery was proposed by a group of Sydney businessmen who formed the Church of England Cemetery Trust and in 1848 purchased 13 acres (53,000 m²) of land "beyond the boundary stone" of Sydney, from Maurice Charles O'Connell, grandson of Governor Bligh. The land was part of a grant made to Governor Bligh and named "Camperdown" by him in commemoration of the Battle of Camperdown in which he had taken part. The land passed to his daughter Mary, who married Bligh's Aide de Camp, Major Putland, and following his death, Sir Maurice O'Connell. The cemetery was consecrated by Bishop William Grant Broughton on 16 January 1849.