"If you cannot get rid
of the family skeleton,
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Monumental Inscriptions
in the
Carlyle Cemetery
Distillery Road, Wahgunyah, Victoria, Australia
located between Rutherglen and Wahgunyah
Transcribed by Deborah Mould (debmould@yahoo.com)
Deborah transcribed the Church of England headstones as part of her university course in Local History and Melbourne DPS is proud to be able to host this transcription for her.
In October 1859, the District Surveyor was called upon to locate a suitable area for a burial ground that would
service the townships of Wahgunyah, Rutherglen and Carlyle in Victoria's north east region. Originally located
on the river flats, the eight acres of Crown Load set aside for the cemetery proved to be prone to flooding, and
in 1864 another site was chosen on Distillery Road.
The first officially recorded burial to have taken place was that of Sarah Geering on February 12, 1865, however a number of re-internments from the previous cemetery had taken place before this. Burial records were kept by one of the cemetery's trustees, with the area first surveyed for the laying out of graves by James Darbyshire in 1865. Separated into five main areas: Church of England, Presbyterian, Congregationalist/Wesleyan, Jewish/Pagan and Catholic; the only alteration to the original plan has been the halving of the Congregationalist ground, for the purposes of a columbarium to house ashes.
In 1897 the local Chinese community erected furnaces for the purposes of burning symbolic gifts, such as gold and silver paper, to assist the dead through their journey into the next life.
The Carlyle cemetery is operated by Indigo Shire Council, who allow public viewings of the burial register and cemetery map at its Customer Service Centre in Main Street, Rutherglen, (02) 6032 8206. Please direct any queries, or requests for viewing the register or cemetery plan to this address, or to the Council directly at indigoshire@indigoshire.vic.gov.au. Additionally the Rutherglen Historical Society (5 Nilsson Street, Rutherglen, Vic 3685) also holds similar records for burial, as well as other information about the area and its inhabitants.
These transcriptions were collected between 1996 and 2002 and include all head or gravestones for people who passed away between 1865 and 1995. No cremations or nameplates were transcribed. Whilst all care has been taken in transcribing this material, the compiler wishes to acknowledge that errors may have incurred, and that some information on headstones is incompatible with that in the burial register or the cemetery plan.
The transcription itself is arranged by plot number. An alphabetic index to the names is available which will give you the applicable plot number, or your can use our global search of the DPS website on the left side to see if the name you want appears on any of our cemetery transcript pages.
Church of England
Headstone transcriptions (plot numbers)
1 to 99 / 100 to 199 / 200 to 299 / 300 to 399 / 400 to 599 / 600 to 799
Jewish, Wesleyan and Methodist
Presbyterian
Headstone transcriptions (plot numbers)
1 to 399 / 400 to 599 / 600 to 699
Catholic
1 to 99 / 100 to 199 / 200 to 279 / 280 to 399 / 400 to 439 / 440 to 504