Friends of Lutwyche Cemetery

24/06/2026

On Sunday after our general meeting, members of FoLC cleaned graves in COE3 including the Barnsley family plot, which will be featured in the next newsletter.

19/06/2026

The June meeting and cleanup is this Sunday, starting at 10:30am. All members and non-members are very welcome.

You may have seen these little grave markers throughout the cemetery. Sometimes they are laid into the concrete; sometimes they are loose. They are numbered A1 to A1000, B1 to B1000, etc., and can be cross-referenced with the burial records, of which about the first 60 years are publicly available.

Here you can see the markers for the 9th, 2823rd, and 10468th burials.

20/05/2026

20/05/2026

Last Sunday, FoLC volunteers continued cleaning headstones in GP5. Here are some "before and after" shots. Our next meeting and cemetery cleanup will be held on the 21st of June at 10:30am.

Our Conservation, Care, and Research of Memorials and Graves committee members (Cate and Katrina) also can be commissioned for grave and headstone cleaning and granite headstone relettering, for which a donation is appreciated. Contact [email protected] for more details.

16/05/2026

Feeling like cleaning some headstones? We'll be at it tomorrow morning, 10:30am. Bring a smile, we provide the rest.

Today's history lesson is based around the picture below. Young Ida Alfredson died in 1895 at the age of two. While this memorial is very sad, sadder still are the absences of memorials for many children, for the late nineteenth century saw industrial-scale child mortality in our local area. Most of these childrens' graves are unmarked.

Statistics can be used to demonstrate how lucky we are to live in the 21st century. I've broken down the numbers by decade, and the first full one that we have in Lutwyche is the 1880s. The median age of a burial was 3 years old. That means that if you lined up the dead people by age, the middle one would be aged 3. Two thirds of burials were for people aged less than 20, and only 8% made it to 65.

The median age of burials in Lutwyche has improved remarkably over time. It reached 25 by the 1910s, 44 in the 1930s, and 74 in the 1970s.

Recent records can be skewed by the fact that Lutwyche is now a historic cemetery. However, in the last full decade, the 2010s, the median age was 86.5, only 2% were people younger than 20, and 91% were aged over 65.

We are truly fortunate to have lived in an age where child mortality is a rarity, rather than the most common form of mortality.

19/04/2026

A small but enthusiastic band of volunteers cleaned up some headstones in GP5 after today's monthly meeting. We also cleared twig and leaf debris off the tops of graves.

Photography by Katrina, secretary extraordinaire!

17/04/2026

Tomorrow is our general meeting / cleanup. Don't forget that we will be back to our 'cooler months' time of 10:30am, in the shelter near Gympie Road.

Pictured is a plot that I photographed for a follower. Are you interstate / overseas and want to know what condition your loved one's plot is in? Message us, and we'll send you a photo.

14/04/2026

Did you know that not all burial information is included in DiscoverEverAfter (the company that presents BCC's data)?

Burial registers can contain additional information, with the first 60 or so years being freely available at State Archives.