Local volunteers hoping to give cemetery a new lease of life

  • 2012-09-04
Throughout August, a group of local volunteers spearheaded the preservation of a 160-year-old Broadmeadows cemetery.

The Will Will Rook Pioneer Cemetery in Camp Road closed for burials in 1959 but contains the graves of some of the area’s first settlers. Since its closure, the elements and human vandals have caused the graveyard to deteriorate and it is now in a state of disrepair.

Two years ago, a group of locals set up the Friends of Will Will Rook Pioneer Cemetery and now they are seeking help to preserve it. The group has been working to restore and tidy up the cemetery and is now trying to find families of as many of the settlers buried in the cemetery as possible to help with the project.

They hope to restore the remaining graves and erect storyboard panels to explain the cemetery’s history to visitors.

Beryl Patullo is helping to research the graves and the history of the people buried there. Patullo’s husband is among those with ancestors buried in the cemetery. The family has more than 25 ancestors buried there after five Patullo brothers arrived in Australia from their home in Perthshire in Scotland in 1841.

Patullo said the group was particularly interested in speaking to people with information on people buried in the cemetery before 1859, which is the date of the earliest records available. Once they have collected records, the group could consider catalog printing to create a lasting collection of information about the people buried in the cemetery and their stories.