Williamstown Cemetery (Williamstown North)

Williamstown Cemetery is a historic cemetery with strong links to Williamstown's maritime and colonial history. Opened in 1858, it contains some of Victoria's early funerary monuments as well as the graves and memorials of sailors, local pioneers and prominent Victorians.

The cemetery was established partly to provide a new resting place for people buried at the earlier Point Gellibrand Burial Ground. In 1899, around 808 bodies were exhumed from Point Gellibrand and reinterred here in a mass grave. Surviving gravestones were incorporated into the Point Gellibrand Vault, constructed in 1901.

The first burial at Williamstown Cemetery was Captain Lawrence Lawson, a master mariner and long-time Williamstown resident, on 22 March 1858.

A large number of memorials commemorate people who died at sea or were connected with maritime services, reflecting Williamstown's importance as a busy nineteenth-century port.

The cemetery was added to the Victorian Heritage Register in 1997.

Features:

Features include:

Historic nineteenth-century cemetery
Early Victorian gravestones and monuments
Point Gellibrand Vault and mass grave
Victorian Navy monument
Robert Ellery memorial, commemorating one of Victoria's early scientists
Sarah Liley monument with a statue of a woman holding an anchor
Memorials associated with Williamstown's maritime history
La Cappella di Sant'Antonio Mausoleum and chapel
Historic chapel
Monumental graves
Garden memorials
Parking
Public toilets

Point Gellibrand Vault:

After the closure of the old Point Gellibrand Burial Ground, around 808 remains were exhumed and reinterred at Williamstown Cemetery in 1899. Surviving gravestones from the old burial ground were mounted on a vault constructed in 1901, creating one of the cemetery's most significant historic features.