A guided tour of “God’s half acre” will wind past the unmarked grave of the man who informed police Ned Kelly was making body armour.
The tour of Williamstown Cemetery for Australian Heritage Month will take in the final resting place of Daniel Kennedy, along with those of many unknown or forgotten citizens.
Hosted by Friends of Williamstown Cemetery and Williamstown Historical Society, the tour, called My Story, is the product of painstaking research.
Society president Brian Haynes said
Mr Kennedy, who died in 1921, was buried in an unmarked grave in what he calls “God’s half acre” with his wife.
“Kennedy reported to the police the whereabouts of Ned Kelly and that Kelly was working on his now famous body armour,”
Mr Haynes said. “At first, he wasn’t believed, but his information did assist in Kelly’s capture.
“Local hostility resulted in Kennedy having to move away from Greta and he finally settled in Williamstown where he could lead a much quieter life.”
He said visitors would hear the sad tale of toddler cousins Julia Sutherland and Michael Brown who were hit by a train in 1859, and pass by the grave of an unknown Aboriginal who died about 300 years ago and whose body was recovered during work near Kororoit Creek in 1887.
Friends co-ordinator Meg Jenkins said many would be surprised to learn the cemetery had Australia’s largest mass grave, created when about 800 bodies were reinterred from the original Point Gellibrand buriel ground.
“Because it was tidal and the Victorian railways wanted the land, the bodies were exhumed and moved into a mass grave in the old part of the cemetery, which is part of the tour,” she said. “Some of them were convicts, some of them were early settlers; people coming off boats with … they called it yellow fever, but we suspect it was typhoid.”
My Story: A Walking tour of Williamstown Cemetery will run from 3-4.30pm on Saturday, May 12.
Bookings required via heritagehobsonsbay.eventbrite.com
