Pollok Cemetery FreeSpace page

Date: About 1863
Location: Pollok, Auckland, New Zealand
Surnames/tags: New_Zealand Cemeteries

A Free-space page to record the lives and deaths of those interred at Pollok Cemetery.

Pollok Cemetery is on Given Road, Pollok. While the Council publishes opening hours for the cemetery, in practice, it seems the gate is always unlocked. The cemetery has a small number of interments and occupies a small field/paddock in a rural setting. There is no off street parking set aside, but there is a gravel area to pull in and park in front of the wooden gate. Once this is opened there is a grass area, which you pass through before getting to the metal farm gate that opens into the cemetery field.

No published history can be found for this cemetery, which serves a small farming community on the Awhitu Peninsula. The 150th anniversary of the Pollok settlement was held in 2014. The original concept of the settlement was for a self-contained and self-sufficient religious community where there would be little need for contact with the outside world, therefore the isolated location was not a deterrent for the settlers. The first settlers came from Pollokshaws near Glasgow and were ardent Presbyterians. They had been inspired to look for new opportunities by clergyman James Miln Smith (with the nickname of "Brimstone Jimmy"), who had visited New Zealand and described the land as flowing with milk and honey.

The New Zealand Government guaranteed 40 acres for every passenger who paid his passage to New Zealand and who was prepared to take up what was considered wasteland, and offered additional land at discounted prices. This was an attractive proposition for prospective settlers dealing with hard times in Scotland, and they purchased land sight unseen. On arrival, in 1863, the settlers found inhospitable scrubland and swamp. Some persisted in their farming and in setting up a community, but others sold their land for as little as sixpence and abandoned the settlement.

Early burial records are not held, and some plot markers are no longer visible. It is believed that Robert Scouller and his son Lawrence, who died in 1868, are buried there, and number among the earliest interments. The Scouller plot was directly at the back from the gate but no marker now exists.

By 1874 most of the land in Pollok had been settled, but the original settlers had been joined by Sots who were predominantly of Church of Scotland persuasion. The Church and school building burned down in 1882 and Mr Smith (Brimstone Jimmy), who had acted as teacher and minister, left the settlement.

The cemetery today holds a mixture of old and newer graves.

Visiting hours
During daylight savings hours
7.30am to 8.30pm
Outside of daylight savings hours
7.30am to 6pm

Links

• Council information page on Pollok Cemetery
• Find-a-Grave
• Billion Graves

Also See

• The Early History of Pollok and its Settlers - thanks to Daphne Friis
• 150 Years of Pollok Settlement by Lynda

New Zealand Cemeteries Team

This page is part of the Global Cemeteries Project and the Oceania Cemeteries Project. See the Category page for a list of people (with WikiTree profiles) buried in Pollok Cemetery.

The New Zealand Cemeteries Team maintains this page and keeps track of progress on the capturing of information, data, photos, profiles added etc for Pollok Cemetery.

The aim of the team (as part of the Global Cemeteries Project) is to document the final resting place of those buried in New Zealand, to ensure that each cemetery has its own free-space page, which is linked to the category structure for Global Cemeteries, and that those buried in them are also gathered in the correct category.

If you would like to join us in this endeavour, let us know.