Historians from the East Gippsland Historical Society will be conducting a tour at the Bairnsdale Cemetery this Friday, October 31, at 7pm.
The cemetery tour will take approximately 1-1.5 hours and will meander through the historic sections of the Bairnsdale Cemetery. Cemetery walks contribute to the fundraising for the Society’s Museum, which is located at 40 Macarthur Street, Bairnsdale.
The museum has a large collection of local historical artefacts from the East Gippsland district, providing a fascinating look into the past. There is also a large resource of historical documents and photographs that are accessible for those interested in researching local and family history. Society members are available to assist with research enquiries. The museum is open to visitors on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and on the first Sunday of each month. Opening hours are from 10am to 3pm.
The cemetery tour will look at some of the district’s identities and stories of people who found their final resting place at the Bairnsdale Cemetery.
Halloween has its origins in pagan traditions, particularly the Gaelic festival of Samhain, which was a Scottish festival celebrated on November 1 to mark the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter or the “darker half” of the year.
It is believed that the Samhain festival was Christianised and became All Saints Day, or All Hallows Day, which is dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs and the faithful departed. In many traditions, All Saints Day is part of the season of Allhallowtide, which starts on All Hallow’s Eve on October 31. In popular culture, Halloween has become a celebration of horror and is associated with the macabre and
the supernatural.
The walk will follow the more traditional origins of Halloween, by remembering the dead.
One of the grave’s featured is John McKnockiter, he was born in about 1863 in Cummington, Duffus, County of Moray, Scotland. His father was George McKnockiter, and his mother was Ann Patterson. His father was a joiner by trade.
With his brother, William McKnockiter, they arrived in Sydney on the Orient line steamer, Iberia on August 21, 1886, and together they started working in the building trade. They remained in Sydney for two years and then came to Bairnsdale to build a home for RG Brownlow at Eagle Point called ‘Eagles Court’.
John married Catherine Carruthers Saunders in 1889 and they had two children.
The brothers went on to build the two-storey residence for St Andrew’s College, now the home of the East Gippsland Historical Society. Subsequent contracts included Salter’s Buildings on Bailey Street, the Methodist Church, a two-storey building for James Tipping, and additions to the Bairnsdale District Hospital in McKean Street.
John’s brother William afterwards went to South Africa and later returned to Melbourne to continue in the building trade.
John became a Master Builder and one of Gippsland’s most skilled craftsmen in the building trade, building many of the residences in the town, the Lindenow Hall, as well as the Union Bank. John completed extensions to the School of Mines in 1898 and rebuilt the Imperial Hotel in
1902, which was demolished in recent years.
John died suddenly at his home, Dalfruin, in McCulloch Street, Bairnsdale, on June 22, 1943, at the age of 80. Although not mentioned on the headstone, he is buried with his wife Catherine who died in 1931.
To book your place on the tour, contact the East Gippsland Historical Society at 40 Macarthur
Street, Bairnsdale.
