Memorial signage achieved at Helensburgh Cemetery
Jenny Donohoe of Helensburgh & District Historical Society thanks Council for installing signage to mark the graves of paupers, stillborn babies and unknown burials at Helensburgh General Cemetery
Thanks to Wollongong City Council for the new signage in the Helensburgh General Cemetery.
Helensburgh & District Historical Society has been researching missing burials that were recorded in 2006 by Max Negel.
Max worked on the Helensburgh General Cemetery Register for years and his research was via many primary documents, i.e., church registers, family history societies, local newspapers, hospital registers, NSW Death Index, Wollongong Council’s Burial Register, microfiche and, importantly, local knowledge.
Limited copies of this mammoth document were printed and donated to various family history societies, and this is where our researchers started their enquiries.
Max had recorded more than 100 burials from his primary sources that were not recorded elsewhere. The question the society asked was: ‘Where were they?’
In 2025, buried in the archives of the Helensburgh Historical Society, old surveyed cemetery maps were found that opened up a number of possibilities. From these maps, we discovered there were originally eight sections in the cemetery by a 1934 survey.
Council’s current cemetery map shows only four known sections. It appears the other four sections – numbered 5 to 8 – were covered by bushland, with some burials revealed after an RFS back-burn.
Council has now installed signs indicating the lost stillborn babies’ section, near the entrance to the cemetery, and a sign marking pauper and unknown burials at the back of the Anglican section. Council is preparing another sign for the old sections 5 to 8, where burials have been found.
Acknowledgement of these unknown burials have only happened through the society’s research and land surveys with the Council’s Operations Manager of Memorial Gardens & Cemeteries.
