Linwood Cemetery Tour Guide - Christchurch City Libraries

Linwood Cemetery
History
In the 1880s it was believed, both by the medical fraternity and the masses, that ‘it is
not advisable on sanitary grounds that cemeteries should be situated in towns’. In
September 1883 Dr. Courtney Nedwill advised the Christchurch City Council that
‘after a convenient period the further disposal of the dead should not be permitted in
the city’. Negotiations were completed with the Linwood Town Board and Heathcote
Road Board and an 18 acre burial reserve outside municipal boundaries dedicated.
Although the Barbadoes Street Cemetery was to be the site of funerals for many years
to come, the frequency of such occurrences was to be on a much reduced scale than
had been the case in the first 30 years of the history of the metropolis.
Linwood Cemetery is on sandy soil and was known as ‘the Sandhills’, ‘Corporation’
and then Linwood Cemetery. The Catholic portion begins half way up the hill on the
side nearest Buckleys Road and extends to the tree line at the northern end.
Wealthy members of the Canterbury Hebrew Congregation subscribed money so that,
on 13 October 1864, the community could purchase one rood of land on Hereford
Street. This was Part Rural Section 26 in the City of Christchurch. The title, a
conveyance under the Deeds system, was vested in trustees as a burial ground. The
original trustees were Louis Edward Nathan, Maurice Harris, Hyman Marks, David
Davis and Henry Moss. New trustees were appointed in 1882, 1914 and 1926.
There were 34 burials in the graveyard, the last in April 1890. By that time the
Linwood Cemetery had opened with a section set aside for Jewish graves. This runs
from the foot to part way up the hill at the eastern end of the graveyard.
‘For some considerable period’, the grounds at Hereford Street looked ‘unsightly’. In
1924 the congregation decided that it should close the Hereford Street cemetery, shift
the bodies to Linwood and sell the land. A prospective buyer paid a deposit but the
community discovered that, under the terms of the conveyance, the consent of two
thirds of the congregation would be necessary before the disposal of the land could
take place; also, a private bill would have to be put through Parliament. The
congregation had to refund the money. For many years thereafter the community
negotiated with relatives of people buried in the grounds so that all affected might
agree to the sale.
John McCullough, a local member of the Legislative Council, piloted through
Parliament the Canterbury Jewish Cemetery Empowering Bill which passed its third
reading on 18 August 1943. It was argued that residential settlement had grown up in
the area and it was ‘in the public interest that the said ground be closed as a burial
ground’; that the bodies be transferred to a ‘properly recognised burial ground’; and
that the land be sold off by public auction or private contract.
Dr. Telford inspected the cemetery, being accompanied by members of the
congregation and Mr. Hitchcock who lived in a house on one side of the cemetery,
whose daughter occupied a property on the other, and who was the purchaser. Telford
opened the graves and made several comments:
Linwood Cemetery Tour Guide
Updated 2013
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