Our History

On 12th April 1850, Robert Hoddle, Victoria’s Surveyor General wrote to the Colonial Secretary stating that he had drawn up a plan for a General Cemetery at Kilmore. He drew up a grid showing eight distinct denominational sections over an area of 8 acres within a reserve of 50 acres. The cemetery became operational immediately.

From handwritten notes maintained by William Singleton, the first Church of England minister who arrived in Kilmore in 1849, indicate that the first burial was that of John Wheeler, a publican who died on 8th June 1850 aged 31.  The locations of his and two other interments recorded by Mr Singleton in 1850 are unmarked.  The first burial recorded in the cemetery register is that of Hastings Armstrong Cunningham who died at 6 months of age on 19th September 1850.  His headstone is located within the Cemetery, but it is not in its original location and the site of his burial is unknown.