Reading Riverside: History and Heritage in Canberra's Oldest Public Cemetery

Abstract

The processes of death and mortuary practices in colonial Australia are often mythologised to fit the romantic notion of the early Aussie battler. However, practices of mourning, eulogising and memorialising the dead in Anglo-Australian society has always been complex and colourful, reflecting the mixing of common English traditions with vernacular Australian practices. Due to the tyranny of distance, these practices, while rich and complex, often varied from place to place, reflecting local fashions and community practices. As a result, cemeteries provide a remarkable archive of social and cultural history for local communities. This thesis uses Queanbeyan’s Riverside Cemetery as a case study, illustrating the social and cultural development of the Canberra region between the mid 19th -20 th centuries. Analysis of the cemetery illustrates political, racial and ideological changes over a period of 150 years. The thesis also demonstrates the ambiguity of heritage value and investigates the many influences on the heritage conservation process, as well as the inherent difficulties in this process. The balance between the importance of conserving a community’s past, and the requirements of planning for a modern and growing community, is shown to be a difficult one for a small Council, one that cannot be achieved without deep community involvement.