BURIALS - ST MARYS SYDNEY

 
 
There were 861 burials performed at St Marys during this decade, being 
925 less than the previous decade. 
 
Unlike nearly all other parishes in the colony, St Marys appears to have 
maintained more than one burial register, perhaps each priest kept his 
own register. And sadly it is obvious that some of these registers have 
been lost. How else to explain there being 111 burials in 1831 and 
none in 1834, or 246 burials in 1839 but only 3 in 1838? It would also 
explain why there were less than half the number of burials recorded for 
this decade compared to the previous. It would not be an unrealistic 
estimate that over one thousand burial records from St Marys are missing.
 
The information recorded for each burial is as follows:
 burial date
 Christian name
 family name
 age
 abode
 civil status at time of death
 year and ship of arrival
 quality or profession
 officiating minister
 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 records in the different 
registers were not always in strict chronological order but this has been 
corrected in this work.
 
The officiating minister was not recorded until 1839. In the absence 
of documentary confirmation it is assumed Rev. Therry, continuing on from 
the previous decade, performed most of the burials in 1831 and 1832, 
although Rev.McEncroe may well have performed some in the latter months 
of 1832. The Rev. Charles Lovat was the chaplain certainly from 1839 and 
possibly earlier until November 1839 when Rev.Gregory took over, although 
Lovat was assisted by the Reverends Farley, Goold and Murphy from time 
to time. Finally Rev.Platt became chaplain in February 1840. In 1840 Rev. 
Gregory and Rev.Platt appear to have shared the workload with Rev.Platt 
principally attenting to all burials from the Sydney Hospital and Sydney 
Asylum. 
 
The information collected at St Marys on each burial at the start of the 
decade was; Christian name of the deceased, family name of the deceased, , 
date of burial, age, ship of arrival and quality or profession although 
there were very few entries with information in this last column. 
 
St Marys register does record a gratifying 254 ships of arrival. Otherwise 
the year and ship of arrival have been heavily researched on material 
outside the parish register.
 
For the colonial born their year of birth and parents names are recorded 
in the 'Ship of Arrival' column.
 
Unlike the Anglican parishes, St Marys does not appear to have adopted 
the new pre-printed forms of 1826 until 1839 (and then not the revised 
version recording 'Date of Death'),
 
The family names of five entries was recorded as 'unknown' and the 
Christian names of a further 25 was not recorded. Without a name it is 
virtually impossible to identify the deceased.
 
The age was not recorded in 103 cases, with a further 35 recorded simply 
as 'an adult' and 10 recorded as 'an infant'. Having no age recorded 
is second only to having no name in making it impossible to identify 
the deceased.
 
The ages of the deceased ranged from Patrick Drumgold who was stillborn 
and Edward McEncroe, John Magill & Mary Mooney who were all just one hour 
old to John Hawkins who claimed to be 96 years old and Edward McDonnell 
who claimed to be 94 (both of these ages cannot be confirmed by other 
corroborating evidence) and Henry Wallace who claimed to be 91 but if 
the age on his ship's indent is correct he was only 86.
 
The number of infants who did not live past their fifth birthday was 321 
or 37% of all burials recorded here. 
 
Despite extensive research the identity of the deceased at St Marys 
has only been discovered in 482 (or 56% of) cases during this decade.
 
The arrival of the 'Middlesex' in January 1840, one of the last convict 
transports to arrive in Sydney Cove, brought a very sad tale of sickness 
and death, apart from the 8 who died at sea during the voyage a further 
21 convicts died before the end of the year and there were undoubtedly 
more who died in 1841 or are recorded in other parishes.
 
All three members of the Jordan family; father, mother and daughter 
died tragically on the same day in December 1837, undoubtedly the 
result of an accident or drowning but sadly the circumstances were not 
recorded in the register.
 
There were eleven executions recorded among the burials this decade 
at St Marys.
 
There were five duplicate entries in St Marys register; Margaret 
Brown, Bridget Christie, Alicia Clayton, Thomas Meehan & Major West 
- all duplicated in Anglican parishes.
 
The Ann Kelly, reference number 0471, is in all likelihood, a 
duplicate of the Ann Kelly, reference number 0435.
 
The reference number would direct the reader to the relevant entry 
in the original source document. The reference numbers continued from 
the previous decade at 0363 and run to 0562 by the end of 1838. Then in 
1839 they were re-initialized but started at A159 for some strange reason 
concluding at A677 by the end of the decade. As mentioned above Rev.Platt 
seems to have maintained a separate register in 1840 purely for burials 
from Sydney Hospital and Sydney Benevolent Asylum and again for some 
strange reason the reference numbers started from B567 and ran to B691 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 "SMS" from which the date of 
burial would be retrieved, secondly using the appropriate date, the 
burial would then be located on this list.

Proceed to Church Register

Return to 1831-1840

Return to Home Page

This work is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.