Heading down the Julia Creek Road, just past the Rodeo Ground you'll come across the main Croydon Cemetery, carved into the Outback landscape back in February 1889. The Croydon Shire Council has set up a great interpretive sign here, pointing out where folks of different faiths rest. From 1890 to 1910, Croydon's gold output was second only to the bustling Charters Towers, drawing in thousands of people chasing that glint of gold. For many, Croydon became their final resting place, including 130 hardworking Chinese migrants.
According to their customs at the time, many of Chinese who died in Australia had their bones returned to their home villages so they would rest with their ancestors. The Chinese graves found in the Croydon Cemetery are a testament to the difficult of achieving that goal from here; this is an unusally large collection of such graves in Australia.
Along with miners and ministers, wives and station hands, you will of course, sadly, also find children's graves. These are especially poignant as many marked out by thier little iron beds.
Croydon's headstones came from far and wide, often from leading stonemasons including Townsville's Melrose and Fenwick, Brisbane's John Petrie, and Sydney's J H Simmons and Ernest Greenway (a relation of the colonial architect Francis Greenway). The first documented burial in this sacred ground was F.W. Kennedy who was laid to rest in January 1889. Shells, mighty symbols of life and resurrection, grace this cemetery, a nod to the mythic rise of Aphrodite from the sea in an open shell. There are many interesting graves to discover and lives to ponder in Croydon Cemetery.
