Guided tour of Walkerville Wesleyan Cemetery

Walkerville Wesleyan Cemetery, opened on 8 May 1849, is heritage-listed and a diversity of occupations are represented in those interred – shepherds, academics, brass founders, explorers, flour millers, doctors, ministers of religion as well as children, wives and husbands. It is a social commentary, too, on early life in Adelaide’s history, some tragic, like the major infections due to poor sanitation. Guides will talk to us about the life and times of some of those buried in the cemetery, a number of whom once lived in parts of the current City of Burnside, developed land and businesses and were diligent and successful in their careers.

Prominent among them was Sir Samuel Davenport of Beaumont House fame. Others include John Fullerton Cleland, who lived at Beaumont and became Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages in Adelaide. His son, William Lennox Cleland, was appointed Medical Officer of the then Parkside Lunatic Asylum, establishing a silkworm industry for the inmates. Sir John Burton Cleland, son of William Lennox, was appointed the first Marks Professor of Pathology at the University of Adelaide. He was a passionate student of South Australian flora and fauna and Cleland Conservation Park is named in his honour.