Devonshire Street Cemetery reinterment index

Our index contains the following fields: surname, first name, date of death, cemetery where reinterred, number, and citation. However details provided in the original register include: number, name of deceased, date of death, cemetery where re-interred, (with division, section, and number), name and address of person to whom exhumation permit issued, and remarks (with the names of others the deceased were reinterred with).

• Record series in the index: NRS 15513
• Entries in the index: 9,559
• Copy service available

A Volunteer Project

The Devonshire Street Cemetery was closed in 1888. In 1901 the total area of the Cemetery was resumed to make way for Sydney's Central Railway Station. As a result of the area being resumed for the railway, it was necessary to exhume the remains of the persons interred at the cemetery and move them to another cemetery, along with any monuments and headstones.

The Public Works Department took the responsibility of liaising with the relatives of those persons whose remains were to be moved. The Department also assumed the cost of the removing and reinterment of the remains, as well as the monuments and headstones.

Practically every metropolitan cemetery existing in 1901 appears to have received the remains of at least some persons interred in the Devonshire Street Cemetery. The majority went to the recently established Bunnerong Cemetery, which is today known as Botany Cemetery. A small number were transferred to country cemeteries.

• NRS 13032: Acts of Parliament (28/09/1824 - ); Item No. 20. Devonshire-street Cemetery (17/10/1901 - 17/10/1901)
• NRS 12556: Reports on the Restoration of Graves (01/01/1901 - 31/12/1901
• NRS 15514: Index to the re-interment register (01/01/1901 - 31/12/1901
• NRS 12555: Press Copies of Letters Sent (01/01/1901 - 31/12/1901)
• Johnson, Keith A; Sainty, Malcolm R, Sydney Burial Ground1819-1901: Elizabeth and Devonshire Streets and history of Sydney's early cemeteries from 1788, Sydney: Library of Australian History, 2001