Genealogical Society of Victoria Online Shop

CD record

There are over 3500 individual headstones photographed and set out alphabetically with many having two or more photographs to help describe them better.

There are so many names which can be searched and the photographs are of a resolution so they can be printed down if required. The location of Moonta in South Australia is shown on a map that can also be printed down. There are reminisces of Moonta as it was in 1900 and lovely photographs of the history of the Cemetery.

Moonta originally known as Moonta-Moontera (Aboriginal for dense scrub) is located near the western shore of the Yorke Peninsula and is part of the 'Copper Triangle'. It is 165 km. North of Adelaide and is reached from Port Wakefield which is on the Princes Highway.

The region has a deep Cornish tradition due to the influx of Cornish miners who went there in the 19th Century to work in and manage the Copper Mines.

There are many historic sites around the area, most of them preserved by the National Trust. Moonta cemetery is the final resting place for many who endured the hardships of early life in the colony which in this area included copper mining.

The names on the headstones in this Cemetery would do justice to any Parish Churchyard in Cornwall. There are also the graves of so many children who succumbed to measles, poor quality water and typhoid. There is a memorial to these children and every two years at Kernewek Lowender (The worlds largest Cornish Festival) local schoolchildren spread these little mounds with flower petals in a very moving ceremony Dressing the Graves. One would have to be very hard not to be touched by this wonderful ceremony.

Captain H. R. Hancock's wife Sarah Annie is buried here as is James (Jimmy) Jeffery the first Wesleyan Cornish Preacher on the Goldfields in Bendigo Victoria. He stood on a stump in 1852 and preached to the miners on a spot where the Golden Square Uniting formerly Wesleyan Church now stands.

Another noted Mine Captain in Cornwall, Chile and Australia James Michael Whitburn is buried here with his wife Jane nee Moyle. Also buried within it's grounds is Thomas Woolcock, supposedly poisoned by his wife, Elizabeth the only woman to be hanged in South Australia. In 1992 a book "No Monument of Stone" was published by Allan L. Peters which leaves a lot of doubt as to the guilt of Elizabeth Woolcock nee Oliver.

System requirements: ;Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 or XP plus any of the recognized browsers Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera.