BURIALS - ST LUKES LIVERPOOL

 
 
There were 767 burials performed at St Lukes during this decade more than 
double for the previous decade. There were on average over six burials 
each month. 
 
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
 reference number
 
Various miscellaneous remarks in the register have been recorded as 
'end-notes' at the bottom of the list.
 
The burials are listed in chronological order.
 
The Rev.Robert Cartwright continued as the resident minister until 
September 1836 when the Rev.Richard Taylor took over. Rev. Taylor was 
replaced in turn by Rev.John Duffus in December 1838 for the remainder 
of this decade, in fact he stayed until 1847 when he departed for New 
Zealand. The Rev.Taylor was assisted in June and July 1837 by Rev.Jakob 
Wilhelm Gunther and Rev.Robert Forest performed one burial in March 1837.
 
At the beginning of this decade 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 of 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.
 
Ages at Death ranged from Julia Aldridge and Jane Lloyd who both only lived 
three days to at the other end of the scale, where some of the ages are 
quite fanciful, although on this occasion John Mortlock who is recorded 
as 90 years old and Thomas Pearce record as 89 years old may well be 
reasonably correct given other corroborating evidence. However Samuel 
Colley is recorded as 89 years when in fact he was closer to 68. There 
were 20 adults whose exact age was not recorded and four others 
where no indication of age was given at all.
 
The number of infants who did not live past their fifth birthday was the 
relatively low number of 99 or 13% of all burials.
 
Despite extensive research the identity of the deceased at St Lukes 
has only been discovered in 463 (or 60% of) cases during this decade.
 
It comes as some surprise to discover that so many people (419 or 55%) died 
in the Liverpool hospital, as one might have thought that at this early 
stage of the colony's development most people would have died "at home". 
A further 95 (or 12%) died in the Lunatic Asylum and sadly 73 (or 10%) 
little boys died in the Male Orphan School. These three institutions 
combined accounted for 77% of all deaths! 
 
The Lunatic Asylum at Liverpool had taken over from Castle Hill in 1825 
and in turn was transferred to Tarban Creek (Gladesville) in 1838 with 
the last burial occurring at Liverpool in December of that year.
 
It is a shame that so few baptism records have been found for the boys dying 
at the Male Orphan School, which would have helped to identify their parents, 
orphans in life and orphans to history.
 
Somebody really "had it in" for the Callagan family; in the single 
year of 1837 the father Peter was 'found drowned with every appearance 
of being murdered', then the daughter Catherine was accidentally burnt 
to death and finally the son Michael was 'willfully murdered by a horrid 
crime being committed upon him'.
 
The Rev.Duffus had the sad duty of burying both his wife Frances and son 
William in the course of the decade.
 
There were three burials in the State Archives Pioneer Series file which 
have no entry on this parish register. It is very likely that most of 
these result from typographical errors and relate to post 1840 burials.
 
The reference number would direct the reader to the relevant entry 
in the original source document. 
 
The reference numbers for St Lukes continued from the previous decade 
and ran sequentially from C210 to C844 by the end of 1838. With the arrival 
of the new government forms the numbers were re-initialized to D001 and 
finished at D133 by the end of the decade. 
 
To locate an entry on this list; firstly an alphabetical search on the 
name would be made on List 5 using code "SLL" 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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