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Research conducted by the Harbour Trust staff and volunteers helped ensure all service personnel buried at the cemetery were honoured with headstones. Notably, one of the personnel – Sapper James Shaw – was honoured with a headstone for the first time.
The 14 new headstones are located alongside the existing graves of Private Hector Hicks, Nurse Annie Eagan and Nurse Elizabeth McGregor, whose deaths are also accepted as related to war services.
‘Honouring the service of our First World War veterans such as Sapper James Shaw is important. The new headstones at the cemetery help connect our communities and visitors to our military history at North Head Sanctuary,’ said Harbour Trust Executive Director, Janet Carding.
The Third Quarantine Cemetery (together with the North Head Quarantine Station) is included on Australia’s National Heritage List as a significant example of the nation’s evolving quarantine practices. More than 240 people had been buried there between 1881 and 1925, having succumbed to ravages including influenza, the bubonic plague, smallpox and scarlet fever.
The cemetery is open to the public all year round to explore with monthly volunteer-run Third Quarantine Cemetery tours. Find out more here.
