Page 56 - Who Was Sapper Brown

Major Alan G Harfield, in an article relating to the British military presence in Cyprus in the 19th
century,14 relates that a Major Donne, who served with the Royal Sussex Regiment in Cyprus in 1882,

recorded in his Private Journal that he visited Dali (the site of the temporary camp of the 71st Highland
Regiment) and that ‘near to the little Greek church is a grave of an English soldier who belonged to the 71st

Highland Regiment.’ 15 Donne did not give the name of the soldier, and Major Harfield states in this article
that when he visited the small Greek Church at Dali in March 1975 he could find no trace of any grave

or memorial.

A Search in The National Archives

A search in the Colonial Office files in The National Archives, Kew reveals that the last mention of
Mathiatis Cemetery in these records was apparently in 1959, the year before Cyprus was granted

independence.16 The Venerable W K Blackburn, Archdeacon of Cyprus, at St Paul’s Cathedral, Nicosia,
expressed his concerns, and those of the expatriate community, to the Government of Cyprus about

what was to become of the ‘English cemeteries’ in Cyprus after independence, with particular reference
to the recent burials of EOKA victims and the fear that their graves might be desecrated. This sparked

off a flurry of meetings and letters between the church authorities and the Government of Cyprus. In an
annex to one of these letters dated 23 September 1959, Mathiatis is mentioned in the list of the individual

cemeteries:

‘Mathiati. This very small cemetery, in the Nicosia district, is no longer used; it contains the graves of a few

English [sic] people buried during the early days of the British occupation of Cyprus last century.’ 17

Map of Mathiati and area (Detail, H. H. Kitchener, published 1885 [surveyed 1879 – 1883]).

14 Ibid.

15 Georghallides, George, ed. (1969), The Journal Notes of Donnisthorpe Donne (Cyprus: Society for Greek Cypriot Studies,
JOURNAL).
16 British cemeteries in Cyprus. (The National Archives: CO 926/1117).

17 ‘Note of a meeting held at St Paul’s Vicarage, Nicosia, on 23 September 1959 to discuss the future of the English cemeter-
ies in Cyprus.’ (The National Archives: CO 926/1117).

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