Normanton Cemetery

Normanton Cemetery has served the town and surrounding district since at least 1870. The cemetery, which is still in use, contains some unusual memorials and encapsulates information on the history of the area since settlement. The first settlers in this area of north west Queensland were Liddle and Hertzer who selected Magowra Station in the 1860s. The settlement of Normanton was established in 1864 as a port and service centre for the surrounding pastoral ventures and was declared a town in 1868. In 1879 James Burns (later Burns Philp & Co) established a store there. Normanton, because of its location on the north coast of Australia, was utilised as a point of departure for goods and…

The Normanton Cemetery Reserve covers eight hectares of flat ground on the southern outskirts of the town. Wooden gates mark the entrance to the well-maintained cemetery. There are lawn plots to the right of the front gate while the oldest burials are to the rear of the reserve. A modern fence surrounds the whole cemetery with some white cedar trees on the fence line although there are very few trees within the boundary.