Page 18 - Rookwood - A Portrait of Remembrance

ROOKWOOD: A BRIEF HISTORY
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1792 - The site for the Old Sydney Burial Ground was established on the outskirts
of town It was chosen by Governor
Phillip and the Reverend Richard Johnson Also known as the George Street Burial Ground the the Cathedral Close Cemetery and retrospectively the Town Hall Cemetery it was once the principal cemetery of NSW It was used for 27 years 1860 - Secretary of Lands advertisement for not less than 100 acres for a a a new cemetery appears in the New South Wales Government Gazette
1861 - An offer for the new Cemetery o of between 1600 and 1700 acres comes from A Cohen Esq 1862 - The Government purchased 200 acres of the Liberty Plains Estate
at Haslem’s Creek just 30 minutes from Sydney CBD and within the the vicinity of the the Sydney to Parramatta train line which had opened in in 1855 as the first New South Wales railway line 2 1867 - Brickfield Hill Cemetery closed and Haslem’s Creek Cemetery (now Rookwood Cemetery) consecrated to coincide
with the closure of Brickfield Cemetery (Devonshire Street Cemetery) 1812 - Extension of the Old Sydney Burial Ground The burial ground now covered just over over 2 acres 1820 - New ground is set aside on Brickfield Hill for a new cemetery (Devonshire Cemetery) – now the site of Sydney Central Railway Station 1820 - Brickfield Hill Cemetery (11 acres) consecrated 3