Waverley Cemetery

The Waverley Cemetery opened in 1877 and is a cemetery located on top of the cliffs at Bronte in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. It is noted for its largely intact Victorian and Edwardian monuments. The cemetery contains the graves of many significant Australians including the poet Henry Lawson and Australia's first Prime Minister, Sir Edmund Barton, who is interred at South Head. Funerals are conducted Monday to Saturday.

The cemetery is self-funded, deriving its income from interments – including burial, cremation, memorials and mausolea – of which there has been over 86,000. Waverley Cemetery was used during the filming of the 1979 Mel Gibson film Tim. The Cemetery was designed to function along similar lines to Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and Kensal Green Cemetery in London.

History

The need for a cemetery in the Waverley area was discussed as early as 1863. In 1866, a delegation of representatives was sent to the Minister of Lands to talk about the proposal. In 1868, Waverley Council committed to the cemetery's management on the provision that it would "incur no cost in doing so", and a government grant of £1200 was provided. In the 1870s the government of New South Wales purchased an initial four hectares of land, which they provided to the Waverley Council for use as a cemetery in the 1970s. To this local citizens added an additional five hectares of adjoining land.

The first interment occurred on 4 August 1877. In 1892, a "sinking" fund was established to pay for the upkeep of the cemetery during times of insufficient income. By 1894 the cemetery had grown to its present size of forty-one acres bounded by Trafalgar, Boundary and St Thomas streets.