Florence Mary ROSEBY 1864-1865
Reinterred from Devonshire Street
In Woronora Cemetery’s
Methodist section A, at the head of grave 36 stands a once ornately decorated
headstone to the memory of 13-month-old Florence Mary Roseby. Once a plain slab
of Sydney sandstone, the memorial to the little girl is recorded on a scroll
with its rolled edges touching the ivy carved into the monument. Its westerly
facing position has undoubtedly added to its weathering and almost obliterated
the script. Above the scroll a left hand holds two roses in full bloom, whilst
the right hand holds a broken stem with a bud, symbolising the death of a child.
At the time of Florence’s death on 27 September 1865, she lived in 781 George
Street, Sydney with her parents John and Ann Roseby and siblings Jane and
Herbert.
Florence’s burial took place in the Wesleyan
Burial Ground in Sydney’s Devonshire Street cemetery which closed to further
burials in 1867. Florence’s father died in April 1898. His funeral cortege left
his late residence in Francis Street, Hyde Park for Redfern Station from where a
mortuary train conveyed the coffin and the mourners to Rookwood Cemetery. John
Roseby was interred in the Old Methodist section(1).
John’s parents and two of John and his wife Ann’s infant children were already
buried in the Rookwood graves and the last space was reserved for John’s wife
Ann who died in 1904(2).
By 1901 plans for the extension of Sydney’s
railway to a ‘central’ station included the land that many of Sydney’s residents
occupied as their final resting place, at least at the time of burial. Relatives
could apply for an exhumation permit to remove their loved ones remains to
another cemetery.
John and Ann’s eldest son, Herbert Edward
Roseby, of ‘Pevensey’ Harrow Road Bexley(3),
applied for an exhumation permit to reinter his little sister’s remains in
Woronora Cemetery and reinstate her headstone on this grave.
John Roseby emigrated from Durham in
England. His father, Thomas Roseby was a stonemason and John learned his trade
from his father. The Sands Sydney Directories describe John as a marble worker
in 1858 at 781 George Street Sydney. Almost ten years later he is described as a
monumental mason. Little wonder that his daughter’s headstone is richly
decorated, yet his mason’s mark cannot be found on the headstone. The mark may
have eroded over time or been obliterated when moved from its original position.
John Roseby(4)
led a very full life apart from his masonry business, being associated with many
charitable institutions of Sydney in the 1870s. He was a director of the
Benevolent Asylum, Randwick’s Destitute Children’s Asylum, a trustee and
custodian of the City Night Refuge and Soup Kitchen. John was also elected as
the Member for Shoalhaven in the New South Wales Legislative Assembly and
between 1870 and 1872 served as a Sydney City alderman for Cook Ward which
chiefly encompassed about half of Surry Hills.
The Roseby family were devoted advocates of
a temperance society and John’s wife was the first president of the Australasian
Women’s Christian Temperance Union. John and Ann had 12 children, three of whom
died in their infancy.
Sue Hewitt 2019
1. The Ulladulla and Milton Times 30 April 1898 p6;
Rookwood Old Methodist section 2A, 301-303.
2. John Roseby’s parents were Thomas and Ann Roseby nee
Lowes.
3. Johnson, Keith A and Sainty Malcolm R Sydney Burial
Ground 1819-1901; SMH 18 March 1899.
4. Walter Phillips, ‘Roseby, John (1835-1898)’,
Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian
National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/roseby-john-4919/text7367,
published first in hardcopy 1976, accessed online 5 June 2019.
