St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery is a heritage-listed closed cemetery on the corner of Pennant Hills Road and Church Street, North Parramatta, City of Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia. It is the earliest formalised Catholic cemetery in Australia, and was in use from 1824 to 1972. A central feature of this historic cemetery is the 1844 Gothic revival styled mortuary chapel, which is the oldest mortuary chapel in Australia. The cemetery was closed in 1972 and subsequently transferred to the City of Parramatta in 1975. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 23 March 2012.
History Aboriginal associations with the area The Indigenous people who inhabited the Parramatta River and its headwaters consisted of a number of clans, hordes or families known generally as the Darug Nation. At the head of the river were the Burramattagal clan (or Barramattagal) whose tribal lands included the area of the present day city of Parramatta. The country was highly suitable as a place to live with its ample fresh water, prolific plant and animal life and temperate climate.
While there seems to have been little conflict between the new settlers and the Indigenous inhabitants at this time in the Parramatta area (unlike Sydney Cove) the Barrumattagal clan were devastated by introduced European diseases, including the 1789 smallpox epidemic. By 1830 there were no known survivors of the Burramattagal clan (Kass, Liston, McClymont: 1996: 4–6, 14–16, 26; Parramatta Council riverside interpretation).
Establishing St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery The establishment of St Patrick's Cemetery, the oldest formal Catholic burial ground in Australia, is surrounded by some ambiguity.
In 1822 Father John Joseph Therry, the Catholic Chaplain, sought the assistance of the Colonial Government to obtain a grant for a burial ground for the exclusive use of Catholics in Parramatta. The matter was the subject of an article published in The Australian in 1825 where it was stated that "it was in strict accordance with the discipline of the Catholic Church, and calculated to prevent the clashing or inconvenient interference of the respective duties of the clergymen of different societies, and the recurrence of an instance which had more than once taken place, in which burials or surplice dues were required from the surviving friends of the deceased Catholics by a minister who had not officiated at the interments".
In 1826, after having sought further government assistance for the erection of a temporary church at Parramatta, Father Therry was finally able to secure tenure of a block of land at the junction of Pennant Hills Road and Church Street, (then Windsor Road), for use as the Catholic Cemetery. Three headstones, however, date from 1824: Thomas Nugent, Phillip Reilly and Thomas McKenna. Therefore, it seems Father Therry's actions preceded the approval of Government.National Trust Cemeteries Committee, 2004
Research conducted by the Heritage Branch in August–September 2010 on the extant burial registers from St Patrick's Cemetery and convict records held at State Records NSW has determined 44 known convict burials, including two Irish rebel convicts, with a further ten possible convict burials at the cemetery. Further research is likely to determine more convict and Irish rebel burials.
The value of the land sited at the intersection of two main roads soon formed a basis for attempts to resume the block while another block next to the Brickfield Protestant Burial Ground (now All Saints Cemetery) was offered as a substitute. This move was resisted and the original cemetery site was quickly fenced in 1834.
The foundation stone of the sandstone mortuary chapel was laid in August 1844. The dedication of the chapel is unusual in that it is recorded under the patronage of St Francis of Assisi rather than being named after the patron saint of the dead and dying, St Michael (as is for example at the old mortuary chapel at Rookwood Cemetery). The change arose from the intention of Dean Coffey (himself a Franciscan) to honour his friend Father McCarthy of the Capuchin Order, which was founded in Italy in 1528. Capuchins are followers of St Francis of Assisi. As the Capuchins were not established as an order in Australia until 1945, the many Capuchins who worked in the Australian Catholic Church prior to then did so an individual missionaries (or were associated with the group that worked under the Bishop of Armidale). Bishop Elzear Torreggiani.Elzear TorreggianiThe completed chapel provided the focus for a Chinese funeral cypress (Cupressus funebris)-lined avenue leading from Church Street.
Possibly prompted by the construction of the chapel on land that had been approved but not actually granted, the Lands Department finally formalised the situation when Governor Sir George Gipps signed a grant on 31 March 1846. This however, was only for a "Church or Chapel on land with an area of 1 acre 3 roods 4 perches". On 20 May 1846 the land was surveyed, leading to a further deed being granted on 12 June 1846 for an area of 5 acres 3 roods 20 perches. This included that area already granted for the chapel. On the 1 December 1874 the land was granted once again and signed by the Governor in 1875. This means that the cemetery has been granted twice and that portion around the chapel, three times.
St Patrick's Cemetery is a material reminder of the early recognition of the independence of Catholics in a Protestant-dominated colonial society and demonstrates important phases in the origins, nature and development of the Catholic community in Australia. The sandstone mortuary chapel is the oldest remaining in Australia and is an important early example of Australian religious architecture. Its construction, together with the 1834 site fencing, also served as a political statement by confirming the claim to the site by the Catholic community.
A cemetery in progress On 18 January 1878 Father John Rigney noted that "the one Catholic Cemetery in the district [was] fenced in and [had] been blessed by the Archbishop. The graves [were] moderately well kept". In 1936 a lych gate within a brick and iron fence was constructed to denote the entrance from the Pennant Hills Road and Church Street intersection.
In November 1946 there was a call by Parramatta Council to close all Parramatta cemeteries to further burials. Council was unsuccessful on this occasion. A survey in 1954 indicated that the cemetery, while well fenced in and stockproofed, had been used for only three burials in recent years. No accounts or books were being kept and the general condition was only fair.
Efforts were made to improve the condition through a "beautification and tree planting" program in the 1950s, which included the planting of the scattered spotted gums (Corymbia maculata) and brush box (Lophostemon confertus) that give the site much of its identity today.National Trust Cemeteries Committee, 2004, amended by Stuart Read, 23/3/12
The closure of the cemetery The continuing expense of maintenance led finally to the first suggestion of closure of the cemetery in 1971 and the eventual transfer of the land from the Church to Parramatta City Council in 1975 pursuant with the Conversion of Cemeteries Act, 1974. Notice of closure had appeared in the Parish Bulletin on 30 January 1972 and 6 February 1972. But on 5 May 1974 Parramatta City Council refused to accept trusteeship if St Patrick's was to remain a cemetery. It was not until 22 May 1975, after some dispute over the plans for converting the cemetery, that the deed vesting trusteeship with Parramatta City Council was finally signed. On 27 January 1976 Council's control of the cemetery was noted by the Registrar General.
St Patrick's Roman Catholic Cemetery was classified by the National Trust in 1976.
Description As granted, St Patrick's Cemetery area was over 5 acres (2 hectares) in size, but has been slightly reduced and reshaped by subsequent modern road widening and reservations.
The cemetery occupies a large, trapezoid-shaped site at the northern uphill corner of the Church Street and Pennant Hills Road intersection. Both roads are major district traffic routes. A third road, Castle Street, borders the north-eastern side of the cemetery, and modern three-storey home unit blocks adjoin the north-western boundary of the site. The cemetery area is level, and features an intensive tree cover, including some surviving older tree plantings including a pair of Chinese funeral cypresses (Cupressus funebris) west of and flanking the entrance to the Mortuary Chapel and extensive plantings of spotted gums (Corymbia maculata) and brush box (Lophostemon confertus) dating from the 1950s.National Trust Cemeteries Committee, 2004, amended Stuart Read, 23/3/12
St Patrick's Cemetery is a prominent townscape element when viewed from the surrounding road corridors. The extensive tree cover creates a "green oasis" at the Church Street/Pennant Hills Road intersection, providing a visual respite from the otherwise intensively developed built environment adjacent to the site. The cemetery also provides an item of visual interest in this surrounding context owing to the different quality and texture of its landscape in an otherwise suburban setting.
The earliest monuments in the cemetery date from the 1820s. Three extant headstones date from 1824, the earliest being that of Thomas Nugent (29 April 1824). These are generally simple, Georgian style, sandstone headstones which continue into the 1840s, and some early altar tombs. The oldest evident (marked) graves are situated in the southern half of the site area. The orientation of the older graves varies considerably in this area, with fairly short and random rows, or clusters of monuments scattered across the cemetery. The scattered distribution of monuments may reflect the loss of intervening elements, for example monuments such as timber crosses, and also unmarked graves. The cemetery is known to contain some 2000 burials although only around 400 monuments are now extant. Whilst a majority of these older monuments generally face in an easterly direction (90 degrees), others face northeast, and some face west.
An early feature added to the cemetery was the Mortuary Chapel erected in 1844 over the remains of Father Thomas Francis McCarthy and dedicated to St Francis. The stone over the chapel door states it was dedicated in 1844, "To the glory of God under the patronage of Saint Francis". Inside the chapel is a bronze plaque placed by the Capuchins in 1994 to mark the 150th anniversary of the chapel that reads Fr Thomas McCarthy OSFC (Order of St Francis Capuchin). The chapel is a small Gothic style building, constructed of fine ashlar masonry with a gable roof. Detailing includes two lancet arched windows at the eastern end, and a lancet arched doorway with decorative hood moulding and a cross finial at the western end of the building. The chapel also features a marble altar (now damaged) between the windows. Five other Parramatta priests are buried under the chapel floor: the Franciscan Dean Nicholas Coffey (died 1857) who built the third St Patrick's Church; Dean John Rigney, pioneer of the Illawarrra; Monsignor Thomas O'Reilly (died 1919), parish priest of Parramatta, and Monsignor Joseph McGovern, founder of the Catholic Historical Society.Coulburn, pers comm 2011; National Trust Cemeteries Committee, 2004