Bushell and Brown Grave Restoration Project, Wilberforce Cemetery

We all know that Paul Bushell's last resting place at Wilberforce Cemetery has become a disgrace to the memory of the admirable life portrayed in my Bushell book. Many people have been motivated by the book to 'do something' about restoring the once-imposing family vault where some of the early Bushells (and Browns) were buried.

In fact, for twenty years or more there has been this talk. And it's not just among the Bushell clan. My contact with the Brown family tells me that they feel the same way. (Yes, I know, the long-promised book about David Brown's family still languishes in my computer, but it will be published - eventually!)

Almost two years ago, in March 2011, I got as far as talking to everyone I could find who'd ever been involved with past attempts to 'do something'. I wrote up a chronology of these efforts as a discussion paper, to guide a formal 'grave restoration project'.

In April 2011, four of us (myself, Marj Clarke, Deb Bushell and Patsy Templeton) even held a committee meeting at the Windsor Library to initiate an action plan. Patsy wrote up the minutes. We were pretty sure, but not completely certain after reviewing the various competing versions of events, that nine people were buried in the vault.  We felt that they deserved some respect. What's more, the project's timing was more fortuitous than ever before - Wilberforce Cemetery now has heritage status and a protective fence has been built to deter the acts of vandalism which have damaged so many graves over the years.

We checked to see what government grants might be available, if any. No luck there - heritage grants explicitly exclude the restoration of historic headstones where a descendant family exists. We enquired about stone mason services. We talked to other people with experience of restoring historic graves. But once again, everything fell into that 'too hard basket' we are all so familiar with.

This was largely my fault. Blame it on my days as the director of a merchant bank. From my perspective, we needed to be sure of our legal grounds before we began to collect the large amount of money necessary to fund the project. Without free access to the services of a solicitor, the notion of 'trust funds' became a stumbling block for our proposed group. We are unlikely ever to gain charitable status, despite the worthiness of our cause, because the tax authorities have cracked down. So we need some free legal advice from a lawyer who's been down this same path before. Is anyone out there willing to help?

The second problem involved information. We didn't know exactly what it was we were trying to restore, except that there was once a family vault, topped by a stone coffin engraved on the top and sides with inscriptions. We knew that someone, somewhere, had a set of old photos of those inscriptions and the arrangement of the headstones before they were stacked in that 'protective pile' many years ago. The photos would guide the work of the stonemason charged with restoring the grave. But, despite many phone calls and emails, I couldn't locate those elusive photos.

However Deb Bushell did recall an old movie taken by her father more than 50 years ago, containing a short sequence of a family visit to the Wilberforce Cemetery before the grave collapsed. A film restoration company managed to produce several 'still' photos from this old movie. Although the photographic quality is poor, the new material was a big help, because it showed the exact position of Mary Brown's inscription and it showed the orientation of the top slab.

Finally, the group leader (me) ran out of time. Family crises involving my daughter and her four children, and my mother, meant that I spent long periods of time away from home in 2012, helping them. In between, people were pressing me for the Martin book (Southwark Luck) and getting a book like that into print is extremely time-consuming. (Please note, Brown descendants.) Not to mention the minor problem that I live in Melbourne and the grave is at Wilberforce near Sydney.

But everything has changed! The missing photos have turned up. Hallelujah! They exist as negatives in the possession of Tony Bushell at Sussex Inlet. He found them among the paperwork of his brother Ken Bushell, who died ten years ago. I'm so happy. I'm about to have the negatives processed into photos and in 2013 we'll be able to restart the project. I'll keep you posted, via the occasional direct email, this blog (become a follower!) and Facebook.

Feel free to add your comments on my blog (below), or via email, or on my Facebook page. And please - spread the word as widely as you can around your family. Once the project restarts, we'll need to raise lots of money.