Fun with Data

Foggy view of the first few rows of monuments to the south of the Church. 

View from the window in the Vestry. 

My lofty goal for this Thursday was to complete all my database entries and I spent the entire day in the vestry. There are approximately 54 entries, and I assumed that it would take about half a day. Needless to say, this did not happen. I began by double checking all of my previous entries for accuracy, and though there were only 16 of them this took me about an hour as I had to double check genealogy information. In all, I got about halfway done my entries. It is taking me so long because I  am including information that is not on the monuments, but in genealogy forms, and for some monuments I have to double check my written information with the actual monument outside to answer lingering questions. There is also conflicting information between a few of the different databases that I must refer to the burial register to confirm, and this takes a lot of extra time as well. Other conflicting areas include monument position differing from plot position. For example, I checked the position of John Greig's plot in the burial register, and it is definitively stated as plot 44 (as in the databases), but his monuments (he has two, an older concrete one and a newer granite one) appear to be on plot 43. The concrete  monument is one that I suspect was added after his burial as well, as it is of an identical style to a number of other monuments that stand on other pioneer burials. It is a simple, slant-faced concrete marker on a concrete base with only the deceased's name  

John Greig's monument. 

and "Pioneer" written on it. This type of monument is also present on two other burials that date to the 1930s and 1940s, with the same level of deterioration as the pioneer monuments. The Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria also stated in their report to St. Stephen's that they hypothesize the pioneer monuments were placed at the same time (1995a). However, the discovery of the two identical monuments from the 30s and 40s leads me to suspect that the pioneer monuments were added around this time as a project to mark the graves of many of the pioneers buried at the cemetery.

I have come across a few particularly interesting stories in the genealogy forms (available through the Church's archives) and in the research I have been doing for a paper on the history of the Church. One of the most interesting stories I have

William Batchelor's elaborate monument. 

come across is of Frederick Reynolds a.k.a William Batchelor. Frederick Reynolds came from the United States under this pseudonym in order to dodge military draft. He set himself up as successful entrepreneur in Victoria, beginning as a butcher and eventually amassing ownership of two business blocks and  10 acres of land for a dairy farm around what is now Reynolds Secondary School. He became extremely wealthy and would often display his wealth conspicuously to the community. He left a lasting testament as Reynolds through the naming of a school, park, and secondary school after this name. However, for his monument, he left explicit instructions for his real name, William Batchelor, to be inscribed, in addition to leaving instructions for its design (OCSV 1995b). Batchelor's monument is one of the most elaborate monuments in the entire cemetery. It is certainly the only one that is so blatantly Gothic in style. The luxury of the monument seems to reflect Batchelor's wealthy lifestyle.

In my future posts, I will continue to highlight interesting monuments and stories as I investigate them for my research. Hopefully next Thursday I will actually achieve my goal of finishing my database entries!