The search for Australia's lost graves to honour the lives of sailors (2024)

When Gary and Jenne Walters travel to a new town, they make a point of visiting the local cemetery.

Between the headstones is where the history is buried, according to Ms Walters.

This unique hobby started after the couple connected with the Naval Graves Project (NGP), a group of volunteers that aims to research, record and remember once-forgotten naval graves across Australia.

"This is a really good thing to be in because one day I'm going to be in the ground and it'd be nice to be able to say that somebody remembers me," Mr Walters says.

After serving for seven years, Mr Walters reconnected with his old navy ties through social media, including the NGP.

One day he noticed a post from the NGP's social media about the HMS Encounter, the ship his wife's grandfather served on.

Her father was only three years old when her grandfather passed, and didn't know much about him, Ms Walters says.

"Different things I've heard, but just snippets," she says.

"By getting this naval information, it's put a lot of those snippets together, which is really interesting."

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The NGP sent Ms Walters her grandfather's naval history, where she learned he was a talented sailor.

He was tasked with retrieving the bodies of his crew mates after HMS Encounter collided with a coastal steamboat, the Dunmore, in Sydney Harbour in 1909.

The tragedy claimed the lives of 15 sailors and was the greatest disaster at Port Jackson at the time.

"It made me realise the type of man that he really was," Ms Walters says.

"It's lovely to think through the Naval Graves Project I could find this out and get my knowledge of my grandfather."

Inspired by family history

Investigating family lineage provided the inspiration behind the project for founder Mark Fleming.

In the late 1990s, he started researching his family tree and noticed old naval graves.

"I kept finding old sailors' graves … I did a bit of research and I found out the navy would bury you in those days but not give you a headstone," Mr Fleming says.

"They had value to me because I was ex-navy, so I started to collect the data."

In 2014, he founded the NGP. Ten years later, the group has located and documented more than 5,300 graves.

The graves are not maintained by the navy or any other organisation, with many of those buried having no relatives in Australia.

"Because navy families move around, somebody will turn to me and say, 'Hey, my dad's in Rockwood, can you keep an eye on him?'," Mr Fleming says.

"And I will because he was a sailor … I go and visit him."

Mr Fleming doesn't see cemeteries as a place of sadness, but rather a celebration of people's lives.

Through the NGP, he has reunited families with their deceased loved ones from all over Australia as well as in the UK.

Helen Cook from Brisbane was not able to attend her brother Harry Cook's funeral in 1964.

He died in the HMAS Voyager disaster and was the only victim out of the three buried on land.

Every year the NGP volunteers gather to pay their respects. When Ms Cook connected with NGP, they invited her to join their service in 2018.

It was the first time she had visited his grave.

Hopes for a headstone

Before connecting with the NGP, all Tony Bambury knew of his great-grandfather Frederick Hewitt was a jar of buttons and a few medals, given to him by his grandmother at 14.

When he was 16, Mr Bambury joined the Royal Australian Navy as a junior recruit.

Junior recruits at the time would wear a patch reading "Tingira", a homage to the training ship HMAS Tingira.

From Mr Hewitt's discharge papers, Mr Bambury learnt that his great-grandfather had served on the ship, which sparked his curiosity to find out more.

"They've [the discharge papers] travelled everywhere with me while I've been in the navy," Mr Bambury says.

Wanting to learn more about naval history, Mr Bambury joined the NGP and was invited by Mr Fleming to join him on a search for his great-grandfather's grave at Rockwood Cemetery in Sydney.

Between two graves, underneath a vacant lot without a headstone, lies Mr Hewitt.

"It sort of knocked me back a bit … seeing an empty gravesite sort of left a bit of an empty feeling that nobody had bothered about it," Mr Bambury says.

He hopes to get a headstone for his great-grandfather.