Cairns Pioneer Cemetery
| McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery | |
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McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery, 1992
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| Location | 127-145 McLeod Street, Cairns North, Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia |
| Coordinates | 16°54′56″S 145°45′51″E / 16.9156°S 145.7643°ECoordinates: 16°54′56″S 145°45′51″E / 16.9156°S 145.7643°E |
| Design period | 1870s - 1890s (late 19th century) |
| Built | 1877 - 1954 |
| Official name: McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery, Cairns General Cemetery | |
| Type | state heritage (built, landscape) |
| Designated | 21 October 1992 |
| Reference no. | 600383 |
| Significant period | 1877-(social) 1877-1954(historical, fabric) |
| Significant components | cemetery, trees/plantings, fence/wall - perimeter, memorial/monument, burial/grave, headstone, rotunda |
 Location of McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery in Queensland
Location of McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery in Queensland
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McLeod Street Pioneer Cemetery is a heritage-listed cemetery at 127-145 McLeod Street, Cairns North, Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1877 to 1954. It is also known as Cairns General Cemetery and Cairns Pioneer Cemetery. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
Cairns was established officially in October 1876, as a port for the newly discovered Hodgkinson goldfields. When the town was surveyed in late 1876, no provision was made for a public cemetery. Earliest burials took place along the Esplanade to the north of the town centre, near the hospital reserve.
On 15 September 1877, almost a year after the establishment of Cairns, a 5-acre site bounded on three sides by McLeod, Gatton and Grove Streets (Section 36, County of Cook, Town of Cairns), was gazetted as a permanent cemetery reserve. The following month, an adjacent five acres (Section 35, bounded on three sides by McLeod, Gatton and Upward Streets) also were gazetted as permanent cemetery reserve.
The 10 acre site was chosen because it was thought to be on dry ground, was sufficiently far from the inhabited section of the town, and was accessible from the hospital reserve. Only subsequently was it discovered that the site was poorly drained and subject to seasonal flooding, with graves unable to be dug to a greater depth than 3 feet.
Trustees were appointed in December 1877, but the cemetery reserves in McLeod Street appear to have been unregulated and little used until the mid-1880s. New trustees had been appointed in 1879, but by mid-1883 the cemetery was without supervision or management and no register of burials was being kept. There was no road to the site (McLeod Street was unmade beyond Spence Street in 1884), and the land was not cleared.
New trustees were appointed in September 1883, and in mid-1884 they applied to the Queensland colonial government for financial assistance to establish the Cairns General Cemetery, and to have regulations for the administration of the cemetery approved. A loan of £200 was granted, and regulations for the administration of the cemetery were gazetted on 5 July 1884. In August 1884, the trustees called tenders for fencing the Cairns General Cemetery, and in February 1885, tenders for clearing the site and also fencing the burial ground on the Esplanade. A sexton had been appointed by February 1885, and in the same month the trustees submitted to the colonial secretary their first return of receipts and expenses, year ending 31 December 1884.
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