GEORGE GRAVES
On November 24th, Mr Eagar, the contractor for lowering the roadway from George Street to the Circular Quay, at the south of the Mariners’ Church unearthed an interesting monument of the early days of the colony, in the shape of a headstone, some 2 feet high by 1 foot 8½ inches broad, raised to the memory of a seaman of the First Fleet which visited these shores. It bore the following inscription ” In Memory of George Graves, Majesty’s ship Sirius, who departed this life 10th July, 178-, aged 46 years. ” The last figure in the date had been partly chipped off, but appears to have been 8 or 9. The inscription which is in tho old style of lettering, with the “s” like the “f,” is in an excellent state of preservation, due doubtless to the burial of the stone, for on many tombstones of much more recent date exposed to the weather the inscriptions have become illegible. The stone was found from one to two feet beneath the level of the original surface of the ground, and is undoubtedly one of the first tombstones ever erected in Australia.
Published in The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW 1842-1954) Thursday 2 December 1880, page 7
(Trove on-line)
FIRST FLEET PIONEER
There has been placed on exhibition at Vaucluse House a tombstone which marked the grave of George Graves, boatswain of H.M.S. Sirius, flagship of the first fleet to arrive in Australia, which put into Port Jackson in January, 1788.
The tombstone records that Graves who was 48 years of age, died on July 10, 1788, less than six months after the first settlement was formed in Sydney Cove. The tombstone was unearthed in Lower George Street, Circular Quay, about 60 years ago, and for many years was stored under a staircase in the Public Library. The stone was sent to Vaucluse House several years ago, and has now been made available for public inspection.
The discovery of the tombstone in Lower George Street is probably explained by the fact that the first interments in the colony were made at the rear of Campbell’s Wharf. That was before a burial ground was established on the present site of the Town Hall which was known as the old George Street Cemetery.
Published in The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842-1954), Saturday 20 April 1939, page 4.
(Trove on-line)
George Graves Headstone
GREAVES / GRAVES GEORGE (1740 – 1788)
George Greaves / Graves, able seaman aged 46 from Fife, Scotland joined Sirius on 28 October 1786. He died on 19 July 1788 and was buried at Port Jackson, in Sydney’s first cemetery, at Dawes Point, near to the present site of the southern pylons of the Harbour Bridge. On the day he died he made a will to Abraham Kimmey, pensioner at the Royal Hospital, Greenwich. The will of George Graves otherwise Greaves, was proved at Kimmey on 13 June 1789, apparently with permission only to administer the probate. A fresh probate was granted on 29 January 1791.
A headstone erected to his memory was discovered in 1871 as a paving stone in Bethel Lane off George Street in the Rocks. It is now in the possession of the Archives Office of NSW and reads In memory of George Graves late boatswain’s yeoman of H.M.S. Sirius who departed this life ye 10th July 1788 aged 48 years. It is the oldest extant headstone in Australia.
Mollie Gillen’s entry in The Founders of Australia
