Albion Park Pioneer
The Albion Park Pioneer Cemetery contains monuments dated from 1851 to 1969. Once a sadly neglected area marred by vandalism, it is now an attractive rest park with barbecue facilities. The transformation is largely due to the local Lions Club, whose members have laboured to restore and preserve this slice of local history for everyone to enjoy. The restoration of several broken stones has been professionally done and the end result is a credit to everyone involved in the project.
Wendy Nunan, of St Paul's Catholic Church, Albion Park, has advised that this Pioneer Cemetery was the original Presbyterian Cemetery for the area. It also contains a group of headstones that had been 'found' in a creek. The council did not know where they belonged so put them into the Pioneer Cemetery (without thinking to check with the registry office for burial details of any of the persons listed). This group of headstones actually originated from St Paul's RC Cemetery Albion Park.
John Arthur visited and photographed the cemetery in October 2007. He made digital images of all inscriptions and these may be downloaded from the list of inscriptions for this cemetery. That list was compiled with reference to the NSW indices of births, deaths and marriages for additional information.
From the Princes Highway at Albion Park Rail, head west along Tongarra Road for 2.8km and turn left into Russell Street. The cemetery is 0.3km from that intersection.
This long closed cemetery is within the Shellharbour City Council area. For further information, contact Council at PO Box 155, Shellharbour City Centre NSW 2529; phone 02 4221 6111; email records@shellharbour.nsw.gov.au
17 Oct 2007