Bush Graves of Wandin South

Bush Graves of South Wandin South

Unmarked Graves of Silvan, Silvan South and Burleigh

Most of the pioneers of the parish of Wandin Yallock and South Wandin are buried in the old Lillydale Cemetery. However, there are a number of infant children who died in the first weeks of life who were buried in the bush and their graves have now been left unmarked and unrecorded. I know of four such graves. There may likely be other bush graves of which I do not know.


1. The HOLLIS twins – 1875- 1875 [ Hollis – Suckling ]

The first in time that I know of is the graves of the Hollis twins in 1875.
These children were born to Hubert Hollis and his wife Eliza nee Suckling. These children were born in a timber and bark hut above the banks of the Middle Creek, to the north of Ferndale road. Feryndale House later stood nearby, and one of the early trees planted there is still standing and must be the biggest oak tree in Australia. The first cild was unnamed, and either died at birth or was stillborn and not recorded as a birth. The child was wrapped by the father in a swaddling piece of cloth and buried on a little hillock up behind the hut. The twin named WILLIAM HOLLIS, lived only eight days and then was buried beside his sibling in the same manner. b. 1875 Wandin vic (Birth Certificate Index 1875/26445); died 1875, (Death Certificate Index 1875/15381).

The death certificate records the burial place, and the oral history of the Hollis family story was handed down from Eliza (who lived to 1924) to her grandchildren, especially to her daughter Ada (Mrs Knoll) - who lived to 1948, as well as from Eliza Hollis's sister Elizabeth Suckling, who lived to 1933, that Hubert and Eliza Hollis's twins were wrapped in a piece of cloth and buried on the hill behind the bush hut the Hollis's occupied - on the site where Fernydale House was built in the 1880s by Albert Wiseman. This is recorded by Ada Knoll ( nee Hollis's)eldest granchild, Joy Olive Jackson, nee Whittingham, in her book "Against All Odds" (privately published on CD and as a book) which tells much of the story of the Hubert Hollis family.

The giant oak stands is a kind of historical memorial to the Fernydale era that the Hollis’s began, but I do not believe the children are buried by the oak tree. Up the back of the present property and business owned by James Dean, is a small hillock beside a road reserve where a grassed track is used by bikes and horse riders The owner has a water tank on top of the hill. I believe the children are beside this tank. The approximate site, where there is a little flat or shelf in the slope which forms the hillock, can be accessed up the side road, known as Randolph Road, off Ferndale Road.

James Dean is the pioneer of the enterprising Technical Solutions Australia, and manager of his help-for-disability electronic and equipment business on site. Technical Solutions Australiahttp://www.tecsol.com.au/index.html> make assistive technology, and automated divices and equipment that is used to improve the functional capabilities of individual with disabilities. This is appropriate in one way, as the Hollis family who pioneered that site for the Wiseman’s had a son Alfred, the youngest, who was crippled for most of his life, and used to use a trolley bed to get around the house for many years.

The siblings of these Hollis twins were: Annie 1867-1868; Charlie 1869-1905; Florrie (Mrs Albert Stewart) 1871-1908; Ada Jane (Mrs K Wilhelm Knoll) 1873-1948; George Hubert 1877-1955, Edward 1878-1945; and Alfred Hollis 1881-1952.


2. NOTE: I was wrong. I APOLOGIZE TO ANYONE I MAY HAVE LED ASTRAY> I am Sorry. I previously had the infant William Chapman – 1894/5 listed here, as follows:

William Chapman [ Chapman – Hunter ]
This infant was the William Chapman family’s first child: - son of William Chapman, then nearly 40, and his mother Estella nee Hunter, age 21. The child either died soon after birth or was stillborn. The Chapman story tells that the child’s mother Stella (Estella Jane Chapman – nee Hunter) was kicked in the navel area by a cow while milking, and she feared for the health of the child from that time on. I believe the child was buried in the garden of the old Chapman home, on the property that is now at the end of Progress Road, Silvan, near the headwaters of the Wandin Yallock Creek. THIS IS WRONG.
I WAS IN ERROR. In checking Hunter Family burials, I have recently discovered his burial among graves of the Hunter family in the Lilydale Cemetery Records which records William Chapman's Burial Therein - At Burial Number 2752 In Wesleyan Section 2, Grave 204, Lillydale Cemetery. The siblings of this first Chapman child were: Frank, Ernest, Mary (Knoll), Ralph, Dora, John, Charlie, Jessie (Hayne), Walter, Amy (Moon) & Ada Chapman (Taylor).

BUT as a REPLACEMENT for Number Two I have found: ATTWOOD (mistakenly transcribed as Hatwood) HUNTER: - I found William Chapman's details by the way when investigating the record for the detail for the burial of his mother Stella Hunter's younger siblings, seven of whom died in infancy. The latter six, but not the first of the seven, are listed in the Lilydale Cemetery Burial Record, all buried in the same grave. The first of the Infants who died young was Attwood Hunter, named for his mother Roseanna Dale Hampton's father, Attwood Hampton. Attwood was an old family name. Even Attwood Hampton had it from his maternal grandfather, Attwood Searanke. Unless Attwood Hunter was buried in Heidelberg or elsewhere, then he is likely to have been buried on the old Hunter property. This is now an open question.

Attwood (sic) Hatwood HUNTER was born and died in Wandin Yallock in 1877. He lived two days. He was the family's fifth child, but the first to die as a baby.

3. Unnamed infant BROWN about 1939 [ Brown – Knoll ]

A stillborn/miscarried child of Olive Ada Brown, nee Whittingham, nee KNOLL, & her second husband Horace Richard Laurence Brown. The child was born on the western slopes of Knolls Hill in Wiseman Road, Burleigh, and taken by the child’s grandfather Karl Wilhelm Knoll who then lived to the east on the hilltop, next door, and buried it in the bush, back of the ten acres, on top of the old Knolls Hill, behind the (present lemon) orchard.

The child’s full sibling was Linda Christabel Brown born 1937 Mount Evelyn., and half siblings were Joyce Olive Jackson (nee Whittingham), Donald Lorimer Whittingham, and Leslie Hugh Whittingham.

Readers, please send me any corrections, or additions, or tell me of other unrecorded or unmarked graves in the district.