Talk:Warwick General Cemetery

More information welcome - war graves and war cemetery

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I notice the page mentions a war cemetery within this cemetery and its being restored in 1990s, but no indication when it was started or its ultimate size. A close look at the accompanying picture shows many of the headstones postdate 1947 (and as I can see into the 1960s), when the Commonwealth War Graves Commission ceased to register service deaths as casualties of World War II. The CWGC website Cemetery Report for this cemetery shows that there are 28 World War casualties buried here, 3 from WWI in various plots, and 25 from WWII, the majority of the latter (21) being recorded as buried in Plot A, Rows A or B ;the selfsame picture shows there are more than two rows of military grave headstones - is that the War Cemetery?) To add to the confusion the page mentions a "War Graves Civil Cemetery" (rather a contradiction in terms to my English eyes) being established in 1948 - is this an add-on to Plot A? It is worth more expansion to put this into context.Cloptonson (talk) 21:30, 13 December 2016 (UTC)Reply

I have added a sentence outlining the number of World War I and II war graves that are recorded by the CWGC on its website, which gives no introductory text.Cloptonson (talk) 21:46, 13 December 2016 (UTC)Reply
I have added a couple of sentences explaining the situation based on newspaper articles of the time. It seems to my reading of it all is that the Warwick City Council was already burying WW2 dead in a dedicated area of the cemetery. In 1946, the CWGC agreed to make that area an official war cemetery (although I notice it is not listed here suggesting the Australian Government isn't taking any responsibility for it). In 1947, an adjacent area of land was to be set aside for the burial of returned servicemen (this practice is quite common in Australia). I think the Queensland Heritage Register (citation [1]) confused the two events and attributed a single event to 1948, although it might not have been until 1948 that the returned servicement's area was formally established - the events in 1947 were only approvals). This is why you are seeing 1960s headstones in my photo of the war cemetery; these would be returned servicemen. I also don't think you should put too much faith in the CWGC; they can get the details wrong. For example, this is the image they provide for the Warwick War Cemetery; there is a Cross of Sacrifice visible and a Georgian building in the background behind a row of trees, neither of which is at/near the war cemetery at Warwick, Queensland (which you can confirm by looking at the Google Street View of the Warwick War Cemetery). I am guessing the image is of Warwick, UK. Kerry (talk) 02:15, 14 December 2016 (UTC)Reply