Manly General Cemetery, Griffiths Street, Manly NSW

When you think of Manly, you get a mental image of glorious sandy beach and hundreds of holiday-makers taking in the sunshine and impressive pine trees lining a long curving esplanade behind the beach.  Or you might think about the iconic Manly ferries that have been taking Sydney-siders from the city to the beach since 1855.

"Seven Miles from Sydney; a Thousand Miles from Care"

What doesn't spring so readily to mind is the Manly cemetery.  Many Sydney residents would remark "I didn't realise there was a cemetery in Manly".  That certainly was my reaction!  And so my trip to Manly Cemetery was enabled using Google Maps. 

 

My first impression of the cemetery was that it was small, quiet (as you'd expect) and well maintained.  I started wandering with no fixed plan in mind.  I was just meandering through the gravestones, reading the inscriptions and thinking about the people and the life they lived in the early days of the area.  Many of the graves are beautiful examples of the monumental mason's art.  Some are very badly weathered, while others have fared much better, and some have obviously been replaced much more recently than indicated by the dates.  I confess that I prefer the option of a leaving the old monument as it is and placing a plaque on the tomb so that the deceased are commemorated but the past is preserved.

The cemetery gives the impression of being cared for.  Not manicured, but perhaps loved?  It is strange then that I have not found any record of a "Friends of Manly Cemetery" or similar group.  Someone is caring for it.  I just haven't found them...YET!  Responsibility for the cemetery is now in the hands of the Northern Beaches Council and maintenance is outsourced.  Whoever is caring for this historic site is doing a great job!

One thing that is missing here are the palm trees that seem to dominate the horizon at most cemeteries I have visited.  The few trees on the site are eucalypts and conifers, and they are reasonably few in number.  At the western end of the cemetery, where the oldest graves are located, the trees and shrubs are more dense, but even there it more open than most.

In 1904, Alderman Carroll reported² that "drainage came down Hill Street at a terrific rate and rushed across the footway right through the cemetery".  This would account for some of the significant subsidence that can be seen, and is possibly the ongoing cause of the collapse of the monuments.  A very significant number of graves are marked as being unsafe and liable to collapse.  This is a further example of the care that is being taken.  In other cemeteries I have visited there is little, if any, attention to the risk of falling headstones.  Here, in addition to the glaringly bright yellow posters urging "Caution", individual graves are marked with hazard tape where there is particular or imminent risk of collapse.

 

One thing I love to find in any cemetery is a monument that documents a family's history over generations and there is a wonderful example of this at Manly.  Here we have Irish born Thomas Adrian, his sister Eliza McComb and brother John.  John's wife Mabel and Thomas' wife Emma.  Another John who was the son of Thomas and Emma and the father of Thomas and John.  And finally Marion Hamilton who was the widow of Thomas' brother Robert.  In the same fenced plot there are even more members of the Adrian family all with extensive details of birth, death and progeny.  Oh! to be a member of the Adrian family and to come upon this grave site while researching.  What a gift!!

 

Manly has been home to many colourful characters over the years, many of whom have found their final resting place in Manly Cemetery. One of the most fondly remembered was ‘Sweet Nell’.  Manly Council gave Sweet Nell, (Helen Sullivan) the right to sell sweets and chewing-gum on Manly Beach, throughout the 1920s. She became a familiar figure, in her gaudy costumes, pushing a barrow laden with Jaffas, Minties and Wrigley’s chewing gum. Her personal circumstances were hard, but she was always cheerful and loved chatting to the children on the beach. When she died, aged 60, in 1933, her funeral was paid for by a group of local businessmen, and, according to the Manly Daily Pictorial, over 3,000 people lined the Corso to pay their respects.  Also at Manly is a young man called "Trinity Bay" who was buried in 1891 at the age of 17.  He is the only known Aboriginal occupant. He was a popular local cricketer, footballer and played cornet in the Manly Band.  Rugby Union Test player, Tom "Rusty" Richards is here along with pioneer female mountain climber Emmeline Du Faur as well as the first woman to gain a pilot's licence in Australia, Millicent Bryant, who was lost in the Greycliffe ferry disaster.

HISTORY

Manly Cemetery is thought to be the fourth-oldest cemetery still in use in Sydney. It is one of only two major burial grounds from the 19th century on Sydney’s North Shore – the other is Gore Hill Cemetery at St Leonards which was the subject of the first blog in this series.

Manly Cemetery has been a special and sacred place for Manly residents since the 1870s.  The Cemetery was consecrated as a burial ground on 5th Apr 1865 (4 days before the end of the American Civil War) by Rev Frederic Barker DD, the Bishop of Sydney, and was then known as Balgowlah (Manly) Church of England Burial Ground.  There is a plinth in the Cemetery commemorating this event. However, walking through the Cemetery you will find there are some burial sites that pre-date the consecration of the area. The earliest burial marked with a monument is that of Jane McLean in 1863. However, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a man out hunting in 1863 had stumbled over the grave of an infant that had been marked with a cross of wood.

In 1891, the cemetery was described as being in Manly Vale about 1¹/₂ miles from the "village of Manly".  The cemetery is divided into three sections - Anglican, Catholic and General.  Originally all names for the three denominations were recorded in the handwritten burial registers. These have now been transcribed, sometimes with difficulty. The Roman Catholic and general registers contain more information than the Church of England section. 

For one of the earliest cemeteries in Sydney, there's very little to be found in the archives.  In 1897 there is a report of cows being deliberately given access to the cemetery destroying graves, shrubs and flowers¹ and in 1904 a meeting of the Manly Council was made aware of serious drainage problems².  But other than that, the cemetery appears to have been a quiet resting place for generations of residents.

When you visit, make sure you wear enclosed shoes as the ground is uneven and, in places, you need to watch where you step.  That said, the cemetery is on a relatively flat area, so there are no hills to challenge the unfit.

MAPS

Manly General Cemetery is situated between Sydney Road and Balgowlah Road, just south of the Manly Golf Club.  It is bounded by Griffiths Street, Hill Street and Harland Road and is directly opposite Manly West Primary School.

The following maps can be located on the Northern Beaches Council website and I recommend that you use them from the website where you can zoom in on the details.  They are wonderful resources for anyone interested in interments at Manly Cemetery.

 

SOURCES

Manly Cemetery. (1897, February 19). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 7. Retrieved April 30, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article108864837¹

Manly Library Local Studies Blog. Stories from Manly's Past. Retrieved April 30, 2023 from 
http://manlylocalstudies.blogspot.com/

Metherall, Terry.  Historic Manly Cemetery: Adults' Cemetery Walk and Map.  Brochure, 2004. Digital version accessed 30 Apr 2023 https://www.northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/cemetery-walk-adult.pdf

Murray, Lisa.  Sydney Cemeteries; A Field Guide, 2016, pp177-179

Northern Beaches Council, 2020. Manly Cemetery. Accessed 30 Apr 2023.
https://www.northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au/services/cemeteries/manly-cemetery

Northern Beaches Council, 2020. Manly Cemetery Fly-around.  Accessed 29 Apr 2023.
https://youtu.be/XP8O4S4TyRA

The Manly Cemetery, (1904, April 21). Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931), p. 8. Retrieved April 30, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article113909290²