In the past I have written and conducted tours for the Friends of Toowong Cemetery as I have more than a passing interest in local history as articulated through cemetery walks. Last Friday I had the pleasure of attending a nocturnal tour of South Brisbane Cemetery conducted by the Friends of said site. I say 'pleasure' in no small part because the tour was lacking the gaudy baubles and irritations (e.g. 'spooky hosts' in questionable costuming, pretending to be vampires etc, and scripts with inaccuracies) that are the hallmark of other night time tours operating in the local region.
My impressions of the tour aside, I decided to write a post because of a general sense of recurrent comparison that the tour guides set up between Toowong and South Brisbane Cemeteries. This comparative reprise had the tone of what might, in vernacular slang, be called a 'pissing contest' over which was the older, grander, more wonderful cemetery. Those which I explicitly remember had to do with the respective 'age' of each (marked by first burial), the number of people interred, and the fact that South Brisbane has "a [Queensland] premier too". On the whole, I found such comments to be quite pointless.
What directly prompted me to write was the reiteration of those same sentiments in the facebook event created for the upcoming tour on 24th August (http://www.facebook.com/events/424863900888632/). The first line of the event description reads: "Whilst Toowong Cemetery on the City's west-side lays claims to a number of Queensland's important pioneers and events, South Brisbane holds yet an earlier record of Brisbane's history".
Does it though? Both cemeteries were established in 1866. The first burial in South Brisbane took place on 1st August 1870. According to information gathered from the Council's Grave Location Search and also from the Friends of South Brisbane Cemetery website, this was the burial of a lady named Jane Hocking (or Hockings depending on source). Presumably she is a relation of Albert John Hocking as they are buried in the same plot. The Friend's site lists A J Hocking as a member of the cemetery trustees. Other than that I know nothing further of Jane. Toowong Cemetery's first burial occurred on the 3rd January 1871, only a matter of months after South Brisbane's debut. The burial in question was that of Governor Samuel Blackall. Not a good place to start a 'pissing contest', Friends...
Looking again at the event page, we see that the two first mentioned topics are the 1896 Pearl Tragedy and the executed criminals buried in South Brisbane. Toowong Cemetery has both victims of the Pearl Tragedy and victims of the hangman's noose. Indeed, the latter are those from Petrie Terrace Gaol which predates the Boggo Road inmates that rest in South Brisbane. How is this proof of a "yet earlier record of Brisbane's history"? It should also be noted that the history which cemeteries bear witness to predates the burial times of those interred in them anyway. That is to say we have as much interest in the lives of the people interred as we do in the date and moment of their death/funeral/burial when studying the significance of a cemetery.
Although it barely merits attention, the event description also lists a "Lady in Black" as being a 'resident' apparition of South Brisbane. If one chooses to focus (or even believe) in such things then Toowong likewise has a catalogue of such characters, some genuine folklore, some the partial fiction of more recent story-tellers.
To conclude, I still find a sense of competition quite meaningless. Brisbane has a long and interesting history, and certainly enough of a colourful past to fill at least two cemeteries. The very fact that many historical events encompass persons memorialised and interred at both Toowong and South Brisbane is testament to the mutual importance of each location.
2 comments:
Hi Steve,
It was good to meet you on the tour. I appreciate your work and who knows we might even work together someday, but I have to say that in this article you seem to be enthusiastically initiating and competing in the very 'pissing contest' you complain about.
Those of us working at South Brisbane Cemetery are certainly not engaged in a 'pissing contest'. If there is reference in the tour to the age of the cemetery etc, it is solely because South Brisbane Cemetery was the 'forgotten' cemetery for so long. There is no 'celebrity A-list' here, and historical research on the place was badly lacking. For example, the excellent Brisbane History Group book 'Cemeteries as Sources' has chapters on several different cemeteries, but South Brisbane is not mentioned once. It was also the last major cemetery in town to get a 'Friends' group. That is why we refer to the older date etc - in our experience on the tours people have been generally suprised when they realise that the cemetery has as much history as it does. Nobody here has ever suggested in print or on tour that South Brisbane is a 'grander or more wonderful' cemetery than any other. In fact we acknowledge that part of it's historical identity is that of the 'poorer relation'.
So it's a bit harsh of you to pull us up for just mentioning the earlier date. Even harsher to denigrate Jane Hockings for not being famous enough for you. You even criticise us for mentioning the Pearl and the executed prisoners. I have written a booklet about the Toowong prisoners, and have also been part of a proposal to install an executed prisoners plaque at Toowong (which the FOTC knocked back) so I can hardly be accused of a one-eyed attitude to this.
We are a not-for-profit group. We work for free to raise funds for the cemetery. We are not in the habit of going on other people's fundraising tours and then going home and picking them to bits in public afterwards.
Anyway, as I said before, I like your work and you are welcome back anytime!
Pardon me for not responding sooner. It was formerly the case that Blogger notified me of comments but apparently not so anymore. In any event, allow me to address the issues you list.
Firstly, I am not initiating such a comparison given that's what was already present on the tour. Had that been the extent I probably wouldn't have thought much further of it. What prompted my post (as listed therein) was a reprisal of the same tone in a facebook post. As said of each instance these sentiments were seen by me to be pointless. Both the tour and attendant facebook pages would be better served by maintaining focus on South Brisbane's own history instead of drawing unnecessary comparisons.
Secondly, the question of holding an earlier history (made by members of the Friends in as public a sense as my blog) is an objective claim. In that regard I am not entering into a contest but rather evaluating what has been asserted. With neither Jane H nor any other related information could I find cause to say that South Brisbane "holds yet an earlier record of Brisbane's history". As I attempted to indicate: whether older or not is irrelevant to the site's historical importance (hence my post's title).
Briefly dealing with Jane H: it is not 'harsh' to say that she doesn't offer access to "an earlier record of Brisbane's history" than Blackall. It is simply factual. Before making any comment I tried to find out who she was, allowing for the possibility that she may well have offered a connection to earlier history. At no point did I subjectivise the matter by saying she wasn't famous enough or anything of the sort. She is, in actual fact, famous enough for me simply as the first burial in South Brisbane. But that's because I enjoy local history. In a question concerning what opens the door to earlier history my opinion is irrelevant though.
Thirdly, I fully agree that South Brisbane has been 'forgotten' and neglected. It is long past time that several texts including 'Cemeteries as Sources' were updated to show the greater level of knowledge now available and the diversity of sites. My point was again that a comparison serves no real utility.
Finally, I did not criticise your mentioning of the events or the prisoners. What I did was ask the same question: do these provide evidence for the statement made on the facebook page? The answer was no. During my work with FOTC I utilised your book (actually it was a chance encounter with said title that made me want to learn more about Hatton and co. which eventually resulted in my own tour) and also drew in the Boggo road prisoners (specifically Keniff). You seem to have mistaken my intentions: I was advocating the dual importance of each site and being positively bemused by what I had heard/read.
In sum, I have a conviction as a historian to engage in public discourse concerning the past. When someone makes repeated statements, the factuality of which seems problematic, it is pertinent to ask questions. If more people did so perhaps we wouldn't have to deal with the constant uncritical acceptance and propagation of certain business operators.
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