The First Brisbane Burial Ground is a heritage-listed archaeological site at Skew Street, Brisbane City, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is also known as Skew Street Cemetery. It was established in 1825 as part of the Moreton Bay penal settlement. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 16 July 2010.
History
The cemetery at Skew Street was established in 1825 with the relocation of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement to Brisbane. It operated until the North Brisbane Burial Ground opened in 1843 in Paddington/Milton. During that time 265 people died in Brisbane and most were buried in the cemetery. The cemetery land was converted to freehold and auctioned in 1875. The Helidon Spa Water Company operated a factory on the land and several cottages were built. The construction of Eagle Terrace and Skew Street in the late 1800s and construction of the Grey Street Bridge in the 1920s had some impact on the site.
In May 1825 Lieutenant Henry Miller moved the Moreton Bay Settlement from the Redcliffe Peninsula to its present site on the northern bank of the Brisbane River. This was an elevated location with water holes and cooling breezes. The southern bank (Kangaroo Point Cliffs) was a cliff of rock, suitable for building material, and a fertile flood plain. The settlers faced hardship and privation and the paucity of resources combined with thick sub-tropical vegetation made settlement difficult. Between 1826 and 1829, the number of prisoners in the settlement rose from 200 to 1000 and the plight of the convicts whose labour was to establish the settlement was dire.
The site of Brisbane Town was an ongoing cause of disquiet, with Commandant Patrick Logan proposing that the settlement be moved to Stradbroke Island. However, the difficulties of crossing Moreton Bay saw this plan abandoned. Logan continued to seek alternative sites, establishing a number of outstations including Eagle Farm and Oxley Creek. Despite the continued uncertainty about the future of Brisbane Town, building had continued under Commandant Logan, who is given credit for laying out the earliest permanent foundations. Logan was responsible for the building of Brisbane's only surviving convict-constructed buildings, the Commissariat Store and the Tower Mill.
Convict numbers fell 75 percent between 1831 and 1838 by which time the area under cultivation shrank from to only . On 10 February 1842 New South Wales Governor George Gipps declared Moreton Bay open for free settlement.
The cemetery was established early in the convict period and operated until the opening of the North Brisbane Burial Grounds at Paddington/Milton in 1843. During the 18 years of its operation there were 265 recorded deaths in Brisbane, including 220 convicts. Most of these people were buried in the First Brisbane Burial Ground. Probably the most famous person buried in the cemetery was the surveyor Granville William Chetwynd Stapylton who it was believed was killed by Aborigines near Mount Lindsay in May 1840. Two Aborigines were later hanged for this murder at the Tower Mill.
Following the closure of the cemetery in 1843 the area remained as unalienated crown land and in 1848 the Moreton Bay Courier described the cemetery:
"It is a disgraceful fact that, notwithstanding the repeated complaints in this journal of the exposed condition of the old burial ground, it is now as bad as ever. The temporary fencing which was placed around has almost entirely disappeared."
Four years later it was described:
"Six years ago, nearly a hundred tablets, headstones, &c., stood in the old burial ground: now a bare dozen can be counted, and many of these are dilapidated or overturned. The fence is torn down, carried away or burnt..What hands have taken so many monumental stones away none can tell."
Between 1864 and 1875 Skew Street was constructed through the cemetery land to provide vehicle access between Roma Street and North Quay. It had not been constructed by October 1864 as the Surveyor General wrote to the Secretary of Lands on 21 October 1864 that:
"The arrangement of the portion including the cemetery be deferred until some future time when the relatives and friends of those who have been interred in the cemetery may be less likely to object to the locality being appropriated as a public thoroughfare."
In October 1875 the cemetery land was divided into 7 town allotments varying in size from and sold at public auction as Section 41. The sale of the land was specifically to raise funds for the provision of drainage facilities within Brisbane. The purchasers were F. Giles, J. Carmody, Dr John Waugh and H. Morwitch. Section 41 was described as: