BURIALS - ST JAMES MELBOURNE

 
 
The first burial was performed St James in July 1836 by Rev.James Yelverton 
Wilson. There were another 154 burials performed during the remainder of 
the decade. 
 
The information recorded for each burial is as follows:
  burial date
 death date (after 1838)
 Christian name
 family name
 age
 abode
 civil status at time of death
 year and ship of arrival
  quality or profession
 officiating minister
 reference number
 
The burials are listed in chronological order. The records in the register 
are not always in strict chronological order but this has been corrected 
in this work.
 
The Rev. James Yelverton Wilson was the chaplain in 1836 and 1837. There 
was no clergyman recorded for the first ten burials of 1838 until the 
Rev.John Couch Grylls arrived in October of that year and stayed during 
1839. The Rev.Wilson returned from January to July 1840 but was apparently 
very ill with the parish clerk filling in for him on numerous occasions 
after that. The Rev.Rochfort Burrow Grange performed three burials in 
August and September before the Rev.Adam Compton Thomson was appointed 
chaplain to the parish in October.
 
At the time of commencement of St James the information to be recorded 
on the official government supplied forms for each burial was; reference 
number, date of burial, Christian name of the deceased, family name of 
the deceased, age, abode, ship or arrival, quality or profession and 
officiating minister. 
 
Regrettably in 1839 the 'Ship of Arrival' column was removed from the 
official forms altogether but it was still occasionally recorded by 
nothing like as often as previously. The year and ship of arrival have 
been heavily researched outside the parish register.
 
The 'Ship of Arrival' column was replaced by a 'Date of Death' column,
making identification much more difficult.
 
For the colonial born their year of birth and parents names are recorded 
in the 'Ship of Arrival' column.
 
The ages of the deceased ranged from 14 days for Louisa Allen to 70 years 
for both Margaret McCrae and George Warwick, although the age of 21 males 
was not recorded (there were no less than 13 burials of males whose 
identity was not know). The number of infants who did not live past 
their fifth birthday was 52 (the very large proportion of 34% of all 
burials). 
 
Despite extensive research the identity of the deceased at St James 
has only been discovered in 54 (or 35% of) cases during this decade.
This very low figure results from the very sparse information held in New 
Sosuth Wales on the people of the Port Phillip District.
 
The reference number would direct the reader to the relevant entry 
in the original source document. The reference numbers for St James run 
sequentially from 0001 to 0153 at the end of the decade. The numbers 0011 
& 0022 were duplicated.
 
To locate an entry on this list; firstly an alphabetical search on the 
name would be made on List 5 using code "SJ-M" from which the date of 
burial would be retrieved, secondly using the appropriate date, the 
burial would then be located on this list.

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