Historical information

Six year old Judith Furphy was the first person known to have been buried at Kangaroo Ground Cemetery in May 1851. The cemetery is situated on an ancient river bed with exposed Nillumbik sands. The rest of the district is formed from black volcanic soil which was hard to dig. According to local historian Mick Woiwod (deceased) the site may have been a burial ground for the local Wurundjeri people as the exposed softer sands were always their prefered camping sites. The Hon. Ewen Hugh Cameron who lived at Pigeon Bank and was the Member for Evelyn for 40 years (1874-1914) was buried here in 1915.

Published: Nillumbik Now and Then /​ Marguerite Marshall 2008; photographs Alan King with Marguerite Marshall.; p39

The Wurundjeri people might have buried their dead on the site of the Kangaroo Ground Cemetery, according to local historian Mick Woiwod.
Kangaroo Ground was a premier hunting ground, but camping on the black volcanic soil would have been uncomfortable. Unlike most of Kangaroo Ground, its cemetery, on an ancient river bed, comprises a rare exposure of Nillumbik sands – always the preferred campsite for Aboriginal people. The cemetery area is the only place where the soil was soft enough to dig a grave easily.1
Six-year-old Judith Furphy was the first person known to have been laid to rest at the Kangaroo Ground Cemetery. She died on May 17, 1851, from a chill caught by resting on wet grass.
Local Andrew Ross wrote ‘..no public burying place existed nearer than Melbourne. The case being considered urgent, a general meeting of the settlers took place on the evening of the 17th……. The result was the selection of unoccupied crown land …….which was subsequently granted by Government for a public cemetery.’2 Judith was buried the next day on May 18. Her grave was marked by the trustees with a plaque, which unfortunately states nine years old, when she was probably only six.
Judith came from an illustrious family. Her brother, Joseph, was the author of Such is Life and other works. Another brother, John, developed and manufactured the famous Furphy water cart, which distributed water to World War One soldiers along with the latest rumours. Hence the name Furphy entered the Australian idiom, as synonymous with ‘rumour’. Judith’s father Samuel helped build the first Kangaroo Ground church school.
Inside, near the entrance of the cemetery, on Yarra Glen Road, stand a rotunda and a water tank. Occasional benches invite mourners to pause and remember.
The gate with wrought iron and brick supports, bears the inscription ‘Erected by Sir Ewen and Lady Cameron in memory of their daughter, Flora Margaret’. These are only two of the famous people connected with this cemetery.
The Hon. Ewen Hugh Cameron JP and MLA from 1874 to1914, who lived at Pigeon Bank, Warrandyte Road, was buried here in 1915. Unrelated, but with the same name, was Sir Ewen Cameron who had been Minister for Health and was laid to rest there in 1964. Sir Herbert Gepp, a leading industrialist and the former owner of Garden Hill, at Yarra Glen Road, was buried there in 1954.3
Many of the more imposing tombstones belong to the earlier graves. Unfortunately bushfires have cracked several. But this adds to the melancholy attractiveness of the cemetery, graced by some beautiful eucalypts, cypress and pines.
Early pioneering families represented at the cemetery include Armstrong, Barr, Bell, Harkness, Jardine, Johnston, Rogerson, Stevenson, Thomson and Walters.
Armstrong and Bell were among the first families to come to the district and Stevenson owned the district’s first sheep station. It took in much of present day Christmas Hills, which was the name he gave his sheep station.
Harkness was the first to suggest a Kangaroo Ground school be built, and one of the first to suggest establishing the Eltham District Road Board.
Many of these families leased pastoral land before the mid-century and bought land when it came on sale in 1849.
In the cemetery’s early days sections were devoted to the major Christian denominations (mainly the Protestant) and one section was set aside for ‘other’ or ‘non-believers’. However in modern times burial plots have not been placed in areas according to religious beliefs.

Significance

This collection of almost 130 photos about places and people within the Shire of Nillumbik, an urban and rural municipality in Melbourne's north, contributes to an understanding of the history of the Shire. Published in 2008 immediately prior to the Black Saturday bushfires of February 7, 2009, it documents sites that were impacted, and in some cases destroyed by the fires. It includes photographs taken especially for the publication, creating a unique time capsule representing the Shire in the early 21st century. It remains the most recent comprehenesive publication devoted to the Shire's history connecting local residents to the past.

Physical description

Born digital image file