Grave Project - Bulletin No 16, Restoration Works in 2015 and Opening Day

Since the last post to this page, time has rushed on. Those interested in the Paul Bushell and David Brown Heritage Grave Restoration Project need to know how this story ends. It will be told largely via the pictures supplied during 2015 by Sach Killam, Grant Skinner, Terry Barraclough, Louise Wilson and by earlier pictures provided by Connie Bushell and Ken Bushell's family.

Progress of Works during 2015

During 2015 the Monumental-Heritage team of the Rookwood General Cemeteries Reserve Trust,  headed by its specialist Sach Killam, spent a busy year in their workshop and at Wilberforce Cemetery.

The new blocks needed to rebuild the new base and the interior support for the 'altar monument'  or 'box tomb' were delivered to the workshop in March.

New stone blocks

So were the four new upright external corner stones, needed to support the side walls and the top slab of the altar monument.

New external corner stones

A new concrete slab was poured in April, sealing off the vault underneath which had gradually filled with earth over the last two centuries and had been bricked-in by well-meaning family members in the 1990s. This approach left the remains undisturbed, as agreed with NSW's heritage authorities.

Concrete slab poured

The slab was covered with black plastic while it cured and other large stone pieces were covered with blue plastic to protect them during reconstruction works on the site.

Plastic protects worksite

The broken slabs of stonework belonging to the side walls of the monument were rejoined with special skewer-like fixtures. The picture shows the opposing holes drilled with computer-aided precision into the piece lying horizontally, waiting to be placed on top of the stonework standing vertically.

Joining broken stonework

By July the sides of the altar monument had been rebuilt using these site-specific remnants of stonework plus some heritage stone rescued by Council workers from various unrelated sites and kept at the Council's nearby Works Depot.

Side panels reconstructed

Note, in the next picture, that the gap visible in the previous picture has now been filled, thanks to the special reconstructive techniques used to replace a number of missing pieces of stonework.

The gaps are filled

The work-in-progress was kept under wraps with hessian covers.

Protective hessian wrapping

A brief visit by Committee members during school holidays in July 2015 unexpectedly added a few more pairs of gentle hands wielding scrubbing brushes, working to remove decades of moss, dirt and grime.

Gentle cleaning

The restored and cleaned top slab was reinstated by August, with the mortaring and shaping of the top inset (dutchman) repair. The mortar then needed to set for another three weeks or so.

Top slab back in position

The final detailing and cleanup was scheduled just in time for the opening ceremony in November.

Bushell/Brown family vault on left, Ann Brown grave on right

Opening Day

The grand 'unveiling' was held on 22 November 2015. A large crowd of supporters gathered at Wilberforce Cemetery on that day. Many had come a long distance to attend - at least nine people travelled from Victoria and two from Queensland, while others came from Canberra and the central and north coast of NSW.

The crowd gathers at the Wilberforce Cemetery

Louise Wilson opened the proceedings with the traditional 'welcome to country' speech acknowledging the traditional custodians of this land and paying respects to local elders, past and present. Her words had particular significance on this occasion, with everyone present reminded that their own ancestors and direct forebears, some of Australia’s earliest European settlers, were among those who took over the Aboriginal lands in this district.

Historic records contain numerous examples of the interactions between those forebears, their friends and neighbours and the local Aborigines who were losing their traditional country. It’s a sensitive topic for all concerned. The de facto frontier war in this district had ended by the time that the first Bushell or Brown burial (12-yr-old Ann Brown) took place in this cemetery, in 1819.

Welcome and background talk by Louise Wilson

Today, the heritage-listed Wilberforce Cemetery is a wonderful historic place, where seven First Fleeters, fifteen Second Fleeters and twelve Third Fleeters are buried. Another reason for its heritage listing is the presence of so many altar monuments (box tombs), giving extra impetus to the cause of repairing the  collapsed Bushell/Brown site.

The Paul Bushell and David Brown Heritage Grave is the burial site for an extended family group.

• David Brown (came in 1792, in what was once referred to as the Fourth Fleet) and his Third Fleeter wife Eleanor Fleming (child of a NSW Corps soldier)
• Their eldest daughter Isabella, born beside the Hawkesbury in 1801, and her Second Fleeter husband Paul Bushell
• Their young daughter Ann Brown (buried in the lower grave)
• Their son David Brown and his wife Mary nee McGinnis
• Their young granddaughter Selina Brown (Daughter of Henry)
• Paul and Isabella’s daughter-in-law Corah Bushell nee Beecroft
• Isabella’s young grandson David Charles Brown

The Committee overseeing the grave reconstruction project had initially wondered why two monuments existed. Once the restoration specialists pointed out that there is nothing beneath the ground level of the lower grave, whereas the upper grave had an underground vault, a possible explanation emerged.  When young Ann died in 1819 she was given a standard burial, but after the prosperous Paul Bushell joined the Brown family in 1822, there was sufficient money and/or a different attitude and a family vault began. It's useful at this point in the story to remind everyone that all of Paul Bushell's descendants are also Browns ... but only some of David Brown's descendants are also Bushells.

The following picture shows the double gravesite on 22 November 2017, viewed from uphill, with the family group of Brown/Bushell descendants gathered below. Ann Brown's top slab was repaired and cleaned but her box tomb was not rebuilt due to lack of sufficient remnant pieces and the absence of pictorial evidence for its original structure.

Bushell and Brown descendants admire the restoration

The second speaker at the unveiling ceremony on 22 November 2017,  Sach Killam, spoke for a few minutes about the technicalities of the restoration process. These fascinating aspects have already been outlined using the series of pictures in the earlier part of this article. In the picture below, Sach is pointing towards one damaged corner of the top slab which was left in its original state.

Sack Killam explains the project

The final speaker on 22 November 2017 was Deputy Mayor Dr Warwick Mackay who spoke with gratitude about the project from the Hawkesbury City Council’s perspective.

Dr Mackay speaks to the group

Several days later the local paper, the Hawkesbury Gazette, wrote up the event in an article headed 'Significant graves at Wilberforce Cemetery restored to former glory'.

 Remember the groundwork laid for this day

In telling the story of this restoration project, it's important to emphasise that the foundations for its successful outcome go back a long way and required a great deal of enthusiasm and co-operation from a wide-ranging group of people.

To recap on earlier posts in this series, the story began in the 1950s when some videos were taken of a Bushell family visit to the cemetery. From those much degraded videos, kindly supplied by Connie Bushell, a photographic studio in Melbourne prepared some grainy still images during 2013. These images were key to being able to restore this site, because they showed what the original grave looked like.

Still photo from 1950s video

Around 1990 some other members of the Brown and Bushell families decided to rescue the now collapsed grave from total destruction. It’s likely that the vault had already filled with soil washed down the hill, and it was sealed up and bricked in at that time.  All the surviving pieces of both graves were laid out for sorting and photos were taken.

Collapsed gravesite in 1990s

The pieces were then stacked, to save the stonework from further destruction and pilfering.

The gravesite in 2012

The goal even in the 1990s was to restore the grave. Barry Brown of Newcastle rallied the Brown family to the cause but the internet didn't exist then and he had to rely on snail mail. The various organisational issues proved insurmountable.

When Louise Wilson's book ‘Paul Bushell, Second Fleeter’ was published in 2010 a new group of people became interested in the idea that Paul's descendants should honour his memory, as he was quite a remarkable man, with an impeccable record as an exemplary citizen in his enforced new home. 

While Bushell descendants were keen on the grave restoration idea, the earlier 1990s photos couldn’t be located, until Tony Bushell at Sussex Inlet found them among the paperwork of his brother Ken, who’d died some years earlier. Ken’s widow Gwen will be pleased to hear that those photos of all the components of the grave (an example is shown earlier) provided the other missing link needed for restoration.

The work of Jill Vincent, backed up by her husband Lester and the Friends of Wilberforce Cemetery led to the construction of sturdy fencing and drainage works, making a grave restoration project worth the effort. Prior to this there was no point starting expensive restoration work if continuing vandalism and erosion would undo it. The attractive security fence is visible in many of the photos used earlier in this article.

The painstaking work of Cathy McHardy in documenting the graves in this cemetery in her excellent book ‘Sacred to the Memory’ provided a solid starting point for confirming the identities of persons buried in this grave site.

Eventually all the ‘gunna’ talk turned into the establishment of a Committee. At that stage the group had no local credibility – there was no long-established family group, as for many other old Hawkesbury families. However the ever-helpful Michelle Nicholls, the Local Studies and Outreach Librarian at the Hawkesbury, offered the use of a meeting room at the Library where a few Committee members met three or four times to work on 'the plan', with results reported in earlier progress reports on this blog. It was agreed that the Committee needed members with Brown and Bushell surnames, and national representation, and work began with a ten-person Committee which included two more Barry Browns:

• Louise Wilson (South Melbourne, VIC) Chairperson
• Patsy Templeton (St Ives, NSW) Minutes Secretary
• Catherine Broady (Thornleigh, NSW)
• Barry Brown (Gold Coast, QLD)
• Barry E Brown (Perth, WA)
• Stan Brown (Wilberforce, NSW)
• Connie Bushell (Richmond, NSW)
• Stephen Bushell (Knoxfield, VIC)
• Marj Clarke (Wilberforce, NSW
•  Rachel Hargrave (Penrith, NSW)

Barry Brown (from Newcastle), Craig Johnson, Grant Skinner, Sach Killam, Catherine Broady, Patsy Templeton, Rachel Hargrave, Louise Wilson (from Melbourne), Marj Clarke, Stephen Bushell (from Melbourne), Hawkesbury City Councillors Jill Reardon & Dr Warwick Mackay

Neither of the Committee's Barry Browns could get to the opening but the 'original' Barry Brown of Newcastle (shown on the left of the group photo, with the white beard) was very pleased to be in attendance and see his dream come true.

The success of the project is due to an excellent team effort performance but in particular Louise Wilson would like to thank her 'Second Lieutenant' Patsy Templeton (in the centre of the above picture, in the light blue patterned shirt). Patsy is the liaison person for the Bushell family for the Ebenezer Church Newsletter. The two women became 'new best friends' as a result of the endless phone calls required to keep each other motivated when the going got tough. Patsy also provided essential feedback on the drafts of various written documents. It was also great to work closely with Barry Brown in Perth and Stephen Bushell in Melbourne, with input from other Committee members from time to time.

The main stumbling block confronting the Committee was the same problem faced in earlier years – in the absence of a significant benefactor, how to solicit money from the public? All sorts of legal obstacles apply and there are burdens involved in running a Trust account. No-one wanted that particular responsibility, especially the problem of opening bank accounts, managing dual signatories, and dealing with any money left over.

Luckily, an interview on ABC radio in Melbourne with a representative of the crowdfunding group Pozible seemed to provide all the answers. At a subsequent Committee meeting the Council’s Parks Project Officer Craig Johnson, bless him, had the imagination to see where this approach could lead, grasped the crowdfunding idea as workable and agreed to push the idea with Hawkesbury City Council. As Council owned the cemetery and was responsible for Public Liability and Occupational Health & Safety, the Committee's suggested approach kept control of the works in Council’s hands.

A great partnership began as Council began to understand that this pioneering approach to restoring heritage graves had much wider significance, both for its numerous historic cemeteries and for other old cemeteries nation-wide.

Next the Committee had to work out what physical tasks needed to be done, technically, and needed to find stonemasons to perform quite a difficult undertaking. Happily, Craig knew about the Monumental-Heritage team of the Rookwood General Cemeteries Reserve Trust. Its Lead Hand and Cemetery Conservation Specialist, Sach Killam, prepared a detailed quote. Louise Wilson said 'we then knew how much money we needed to raise. We thank Sach for everything since - his amazing expertise, his onsite supervision and all members of his team for their keen participation in this significant restoration project'.

The crowdfunding process took everyone up a steep learning curve, a panic-ridden ride at times as crowdfunding through the Pozible platform was an all-or-nothing venture. If you don’t get enough public support to reach your target, the promised funds are not ‘activated’. So, a crowdfunding campaign to raise sufficient funds has to be well-planned, well-publicised throughout its existence, and involves a great deal of ongoing interaction with donors. In 2014, 9 September was a great day because the end point of the 60-day crowdfunding campaign revealed that the target of $16,000 had been reached and slightly exceeded. This was the first time crowdfunding had been used for the restoration of a grave. The funds raised ($16,750 from 69 donors) were later topped up by further donations of $100 each from four people, and the book rewards were donated, so 74 people contributed generously. Their names have been published in a separate list of donors.

Once the money was deposited as a lump sum into the Council’s bank account, Craig Johnson and Sach Killam took over the running of the project, and the Committee kept donors involved via a dedicated Facebook page. That page, and the 16 progress reports on this blog, is a resource now available to the public around Australia as a guide for others desiring to restore heritage graves.

Since then

In the four years since the 'opening ceremony', the altar monument has weathered well, as predicted by the restoration team.  It no longer stands out as new work in the Wilberforce Cemetery and the 'crazy paving' effect has softened as the sharp demarcation lines between joined-up fragments of stone have aged and blurred.

The restored altar monument blends in

Hopefully this 'how-to' story will now inspire other families around Australia to restore their own precious heritage gravesites. For small scale projects like this, government grants are not available and family members must take the initiative.

Signage still needed

Yet to be arranged for the Paul Bushell and David Brown Heritage Grave is suitable permanent signage, to stand beside the grave and provide information about the persons buried on this plot. The stumbling block has been achieving agreement about the wording on the top slab, which was broken in several places and very weathered after so many years of exposure to the extremes of climate at the Hawkesbury.  The picture shows the eroded top left corner and the various joins and patches made during the reconstruction work.

Top slab

Since it was largely the readers of the Bushell book who could be easily contacted and informed about the restoration project, they contributed most of the necessary funds to rebuilding the altar monument. Once the wording is agreed, hopefully it will be members of the wider branches of the Brown family tree who will help with the costs of the new signage, expected to total several thousands of dollars.

The book 'Paul Bushell, Second Fleeter' is still available for purchase. Louise Wilson's rather rash promise to write a book about Paul's father-in-law David Brown led to substantial research prior to 2010 and the crafting of an extensive first draft, but as yet remains in her computer.

P.S. You are invited to 'Like' Louise Wilson, Author on Facebook.