Oakleigh General Cemetery Trust

Full description

The first Trustees of the Oakleigh General Cemetery were appointed on 26 March 1860 (Government Gazette No. 43, 1860, p. 626). The first Trustees comprised three Councillors and the local headmaster. The Trustees' statement of accounts for 1860 shows that by the end of 1860 land had been set aside and burials had commenced (Government Gazette No. 62, 19 April 1861, p 787).

Trustees were appointed under section II of the Cemeteries Statute 1854 (17 Vict. No. 12, 1854). Under that statute, Cemetery Trustees could obtain grants of land, conduct works, make regulations and set fees. Trustees had to submit annual statements of account to the Treasury. Regulations, fees and statements of account had to be published in the Government Gazette.

The cemetery was closed for health reasons and reopened several times before being finally closed by the Department of Health I (VA 695) in 1959.

After this time only those who had paid for a burial site before 1959 could be buried in the Cemetery. In 1960 part of the cemetery was redeveloped as a car park. The remains of fifty people were exhumed from twenty graves. They were re-interred in another part of the cemetery.