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.

Feedback from a Genealogist

It’s always reassuring to hear that readers who are not connected to the family are able to engage with my family history books. I’ve recently been contacted by the Sydney-based genealogist Jenny Joyce, who wrote:

I just finished reading your book on Paul Bushell and wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed it. It was obviously very well researched and I was very impressed by the way you used the various land transactions to trace aspects of his life. I personally have no connection to the Bushell family or any of their close associates, but I do have ancestors who were early residents of the Hawkesbury. Sadly, mine left little in the way of records. But your book has certainly helped set the social, economical, political and weather context in which my lot would have lived.

Jenny is the first person to comment on the ‘land transactions’ aspect of my research. It’s true, I found the land transactions to be a great help in understanding Paul’s life, once I figured out what these transactions meant, a figuring process which took me quite a while. It proved the value of going slowly with genealogical research, in order to digest the meaning of the disparate facts one discovers.

Jenny then made some comments about the photo on page 258 of the Bushell book, reputed within the family to be a photo of Paul Bushell’s wife Isabella. Jenny did not know that I’d already stated on my website that the photo more than likely depicted Paul’s daughter Isabella (born in 1841) and not his wife Isabella (born in 1801). However it was fascinating to discover the depth of Jenny’s knowledge of early photography and read the details for her reasoning:

I have only come across one thing in your book that I disagree with.  The picture on page 258 purporting to be Isabella Bushell nee Brown cannot have been that person.  Firstly, it is not a photo that could date from c.1850.  There are two styles of photos in general use during the 1850s - Daguerrotypes and Ambrotypes.  Daguerrotypes seem to have been produced in Sydney from 1853 to 1859, and the first Ambrotype was not made in Sydney until 1859 (although they were being produced in other places from c1852).  Daguerrotypes were made onto a silvered copper plate and have a mirror-like sheen.  When tilted at certain angles switch from being a positive to a negative image. 

The picture said to be of Isabella is far clearer and crisper than either a daguerrotype or ambrotype. It has the look of a picture made as an albumen print. Even more indicative are the clothes she is wearing. The high neckline, tight-fitting bodice, frill-like collar and hairstyle all point to a date in the early to mid 1880s. This date is compatible with an albumen print. By that time Isabella would have been in her 80s and this is clearly not a woman of that age.

I took heart that Jenny thought the photo of Paul Bushell on page 258 (and on the back cover of the book) might be genuine:

It is possible that the picture of Paul Bushell could be a Daguerrotype, but if so it would have to be a very early example of an Australian one, given his date of death.

That particular image was certainly very faded and the facial features were fairly indistinct, suggesting a very early photo, but I felt that the clothing style also fitted the early 1850s. Several people tried to help me identify this photo but I wish I’d known about Jenny at the time I was embroiled in the identification process!

Jenny is the author of the very cleverly-named blog jennyalogy. I must follow up on her November post about the new records for Warwickshire as they may reveal some extra information about Paul's early life.