Adjacent to Christ Church Cathedral is a small park with a few weathered tombstones that are the remnants of the church graveyard. The first cathedral on the site, a wooden church, burned down in 1869. Its dean was the Very Reverend Edward Cridge, and the gravestone in the photo above (and in closeup below) gives us some insight into the hardships of life in colonial Victoria. It records the deaths of four of his children in a single year, 1865.
Old graveyards tell such interesting stories. I find them fascinating...
ReplyDeleteHistorical cathedral in autumn,I feel calm and beauty.
ReplyDeleteAll the colors and textures are just gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteWe have the luxury of thinking the death of children is exceptional, while our great-grandparents knew it was around every turn. My first guess would be that it was a flu epidemic, but it could be so many other things.
This list reiterates lists found elsewhere on the web. It indicates a worldwide flu epidemic from 1857-59, so this could have been the tail end of that.
ReplyDeleteSaretta, yes I'm a little bit of an old graveyards junkie too.
ReplyDeleteNobu - I find these places calm and peaceful also.
Elaine, thanks. The leaves are going now but with the cool damp weather the mosses are thriving. Before I posted this I did a little research to see if I could find out what killed the children, without any luck. There was also a terrible smallpox epidemic in Victoria in 1862. The Cridges only married in 1855 so the children must have been quite young and could have been carried off by any of a great number of childhood diseases such as scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough, etc. But for whatever reason, to lose four in a year must have been devastating for both parents.