Taphophilia - an affliction found in graveyards.

Do you suffer from TAPHOPHILIA? 

I know I do. I caught it from my Dad when I was a young child.

Perhaps you have also been struck down by it. Don't know, then ask yourself:

“Do you love to roam through cemeteries when you're on holiday? If so, there's a word for what you've got: "taphophilia", a love of graves and the rituals of death.

Taphophiles, also known as "gravers", are the people who pore over epitaphs, gravestones and the history of the dead.” ***

For historians and family history researchers, epitaphs on graves read like a map to the past – connecting people, places and events. Often they tell of grief and loss, but also of emigration, incarceration, trauma and tragedy.

A few weeks ago, I wandered through the graveyard on Norfolk Island. This consecrated ground captures the history of First Fleeters, officers and guards responsible for the lives and deaths of convicts sentenced to the most diabolical penal settlement in Australia. 

The graves also recognise generation of descendants of the mutinous crew of HMS Bounty who despatched Captain Bligh to the Pacific Ocean in an open boat over 200 years ago.

Unfortunately, the main problem with "taphophilia" is that once the bug gets into your blood stream there is no cure.

*** by Fiona Pepper and Claudette Werden for ‘Blueprint for Living’ (ABC).

Melanesians graves on Norfolk Island.

This tiny graveyard on Norfolk Island indicates another aspect of the island’s history. It is unrelated to British convicts or first settlers or even the many descendants of the Mutiny on the Bounty from Pitcairn Island.

The cemetery, tucked away at the side of St Barnabas Chapel, houses the graves of members of the Melanesian Mission* and its people who lived on Norfolk in the late 1800s. The Melanesian Mission commenced operating in 1866, ten years after the Pitcairn community were re-settled there.

St Barnabas Chapel, built from local rough hewn stone was dedicated in 1880 to the late Bishop of Melanesia. Apart from the church, the mission comprised a boarding school, a printery and a farm.

Today, worshippers meet regularly for Sunday services here at All Saints, Church of England on Norfolk Island.

Inside, lights streams through the five stained glass windows including the beautiful rose window of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. 

Both the floor and font are marble and the ends of the wooden pews are decorated with mother-of-pearl inlays and shells hand-carved by the Solomon Islanders.

With no sign of ageing, the chapel is considered one of the most beautiful buildings in the South Pacific.

While the Melanesian Mission closed in 1927, the church and its graveyard appear unaffected by the passage of time.*

*Note: A valuable comment has been added in the comments below regarding the relocation of many of the graves in latter years.

Gravestones reveal a rich and dark history on Norfolk Island

The old gravestones on Norfolk Island read like pages of a book providing a cameo of a life long gone. Overlooking the raging Pacific Ocean, the cemetery separated the deceased from their homeland far-away. 

Here, on the island, many soldiers', sailors' and First Fleet settlers' were buried from the late 1700s until today.
Stephen Smith (40 yrs) was murdered by the convicts during a mutiny in the penitentiary. The convicts were not buried here.

Charles Turner (20 yrs) drowned when he fell from his boat while fishing. Alfred Baldock drowned when crossing the bar. Baird and Bergin also drowned. 

George Hale (47 yrs) – commander of the whaling ship GENERAL BOYD was obviously a staunch Freemason. He died of typhoid. 

Thomas York and James Neale – soldiers - were shot by accident. Michael Mansfield (22 yrs) died when he fell from his horse. Soldiers from various regiments were in their early 20s when they died.

 
Plus there are the numerous headstones bearing the names of the descendants of the mutineers of the BOUNTY who were transported from Pitcairn Island to Norfolk Island in the mid 1800s (e.g. Peggy - wife of Fletcher Christian – but not the original).

Dozens, if not hundreds of epitaphs bear the surname of mutineers - Christian, Adams, Nobbs, McCoy and Quintal. They now stand in proud defiance of British authority.

Murderers’ mound, near the sea and outside the bounds of the consecrated ground is where the guilty men (and a few innocents) were buried after being hung from the gallows.

Imagine how many stories are buried here.