Brighton Cemetery, Fox River, West Coast

Date: 1855 to about 1908
Location: Inland Pack Track, Fox River, Buller District, West Coast, New Zealand Coordinates: -42.03407, 171.38888

Brighton Cemetery

Also known as the Fox River Cemetery ( Fox River, West Coast - New Zealand topographic map. WGS84 coordinates: -43.46824096, 169.99025800) and St Kilda Cemetery, the Brighton Cemetery reserve is Section 20, Block I, Brighton Survey District and situated on the Inland Pack Track, about 500 metres upstream from State Highway 6 and on the north side of the Fox River. The Brighton Cemetery was established in 1855 with the first recorded burial being that of 10-month-old Johanna Manson,14 October 1855 in the Methodist section.

Brighton

In 1866 and 1867 prospectors rushed to Brighton and its northern suburb, St Kilda, after gold was found there. Shopkeepers, publicans, dance hall girls, butchers, bakers and bootmakers followed and the town had a harbourmaster, magistrate and postmaster. Surveyed and mapped, Brighton's wooden buildings "had a look of permanence," according to an early report. The lee of Seal Island, a short distance from the beach at Brighton, was a sheltered place in which coastal shipping could anchor. The police barracks were located between the Anglican and Catholic churches and the 'Brighton Times' and 'Pakihi Reporter' were widely read.

By 1870 gold was became increasingly depleted and prospectors moved on. Shops and hotels were closed and the windows were boarded up. Some families remained to continue farming or mine coal while the sea and the river slowly reclaimed Leek, Rose and Thistle Streets. Today nothing remains of Brighton apart a cluster of headstones and names in a small cemetery submerged in punga fern. There are no signs to indicate that Brighton ever existed.

Burials

After Johanna Manson was buried in 1855, records of deaths associated with the Brighton Cemetery listed in Les Wright's book "Brighton. Its Boom and Bust", published in 1910 by Friends of the Fox River and Bridge Inc., begin ten years later with an unnamed man who fell from 'Jacobs Ladder', Te Miko Cliff and another unnamed man, about 30 years old and thought to be Italian, who burst a blood vessel while climbing up a steep declivity, both reported 30 October 1866. Three doctors, Joshua hayes (23) surgeon, died of heart disease and thisis 02 April (or May) 1867, Shadforth Anderson (34), surgeon died of typhoid fever 07 June 1967 and Joseph Worrall died in Brighton Hospital of fever 30 June or 01 July 1869.

At least ten children and infants and three teenagers are buried in the cemetery. Of the seven woman buried there, three died in childbirth, one from incessant vomiting and no cause of death is given for the others. Men died in a variety of types of mining and other accidents, from drowning, lung and heart diseases and epilepsy. Jeremiah McGrath a 29 year old miner, was murdered, 'feloniously killed and slain', in a 'house of ill repute', by Edward Carroll 30 October 1867. One man named Bromley, left a suicide note while another itinerant, known as 'The Tin Man', was found dead on the Gentle Annie track and buried by Constables - reported 02 october 1892. A skull dug up by workmen about 16 January 1870 and another skull with other human bones found in a crevice in a rock near the Brighton Beach in February 1908 are also interred in the cemetery.

Elizabeth Robertson (67), died 24. April 1895, is said to have been the last known person to be buried in St Kildas (Brighton) Cmetery. Her grave was marked with a wooden cross.

In 1906, a report in the' Grey River Argus' noted that "the Brighton cemetery, situated on the hillside, in which so many miners were laid to rest, is now almost overgrown with shrubs, and only the iron fence indicates that this plot was set aside as God's acre." The cemetery is being tended by Conservation Volunteers, N.Z, [1]

Transcript of Headstones in the Photograph

1. Sacred to the memory of Thomas Martin, native of North Rath Rilland, County Down, Ireland, who drowned in the Foxes River on 30th march 1869. Aged 30 years. Deeply lamented by all who knew him, in the midst of life earned death.

2. In memory of Elizabeth, the beloved wife of Archibald Hinds of Ballymena County, who died at Brighton NZ on 7th July 1874 aged 43 years. A true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.