AGY-1943 | Botany Cemetery Trust

Full description

When the Botany and Crematorium Act, 1972 (Act No.6, 1972) established the Botany Cemetery Trust, it simplified the administration of the cemetery and crematorium by abolishing all the separate denominational trusts which had existed since the cemetery was dedicated in 1888. Each of the seven denominations and non-denominations elected one of its members as its representative on the Executive Committee which acted as the Botany Cemetery Trust. (1)

In 1972 the new Botany Cemetery Trust was constituted under the provisions of the Botany Cemetery and Crematorium Act, 1972 (Act No.6, 1972) (2), which was proclaimed on the 1 September 1972. (3) Under the provisions of the Act the Trust is authorized to:
(a) remove and preserve in a memorial area or garden any prescribed monument which is, in the opinion of the trust, reasonably capable of being preserved.
(b) remove any prescribed monument which is not, in the opinion of the trust, reasonably capable of being preserved and dispose of it at the discretion of the Trust.
(c) remove with due care, after notice in writing to the Director-General of Public Health, any remains from a prescribed grave and reverently re-inter those remains anywhere in the cemetery.
(d) to permit re-use of parts of the cemetery for burials. (4)

Under the provisions of the Act, the Trust is required to compile a register of graves containing the name of each person whose remains were buried in a prescribed grave or to whom a prescribed monument relates and the date of each such person's death. (5)

Footnotes and References:
1. Tender Sympathies: A social history of Botany Cemetery and the Eastern Suburbs Crematorium, by Sue Zelinka.
2. Botany Cemetery and Crematorium Act, 1972 (Act No.6, 1972).
3. NSW Government Gazette, 1 September 1972, p.3565.
4. Botany Cemetery and Crematorium Act, 1972, section 10.
5. Ibid., section 12.