HISTORY OF GOULBURN CEMETERIES

A township of Goulburn Plains was surveyed in 1829 and in 1833 the town of Goulburn was surveyed on higher ground further to the southwest. In 1841 there were 655 people living in Goulburn and by 1850 Goulburn was well established. Officially Europeans had begun grazing in the country around this place from late 1820 using a convict labour force to follow the stock and yard them at night. The historic cemeteries of Goulburn are the resting place of people from both the town and the surrounding countryside alongside many other burial places in the local government area.

St Saviour’s Cemetery was the first cemetery used in the town of Goulburn. The first burial was in 1831 and the site was consecrated by the Church of England  in 1858. The Mortis Street Cemetery was the first general cemetery including Catholic, Presbyterian, and Wesleyan/Methodist sections with the first burial in 1839.  It was replaced by the St Patrick’s or Kenmore Catholic Cemetery on Middle Arm Road opened in 1888 and the current General Cemetery in Gorman Road which was dedicated in 1902. The earliest burials at the Goulburn Jewish Cemetery, one of only two exclusively Jewish cemeteries in New South Wales, were in 1844. In 2013 a Jewish section was allotted and consecrated in the Goulburn General Cemetery in Gorman Road for the first Jewish burial in Goulburn for 70 years. For more information please see the page for the specific cemetery under the Cemeteries tab.