Bendigo - Ninnes Lone Grave Site (Maiden Gully)
The Ninnes Lone Grave is located in a small reserve in Maiden Gully, Bendigo. The grave dates back to 1852, and contains the remains of Maria Ninnes and her two infant daughters, Grace and Jane. They were part of an extended family group which made the difficult ten week trek from the copper mining centre of Burra in South Australia to the recently discovered Victorian goldfields.
Thomas, the husband of Maria, built their coffins, dug the grave, carved their names in a tree and constructed a small stone fence around their burial site.
There is a beautifully created information sign beside the grave which has the following text:
Ninnes Grave
1852, Myers Flat
'So ends the history of a good, clean, careful, affectionate wife'.
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A miner's memorial for his wife and young daughters.
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In 1852, after a long and arduous journey to the Bendigo goldfields, tragedy struck the Ninnes family. Two of their four young daughters - Grace, 2 years and Jane, 2 months - died on the same night, just weeks after the family reached their destination. Soon after, their mother Maria also died. Maria and her two daughters were buried here by Thomas, Maria's husband, in July 1852.
The Ninnes family was Cornish and had travelled with other Cornish families from the copper mines in Burra, South Australia, to try their luck on the newly discovered goldfields in central Victoria. Their journey took 10 weeks and they covered more than 700 kilometres. Maria gave birth to Grace along the way and then fell ill, and never recovered. After a burial service, Thomas carved their names in a tree and built a stone wall around the grave.
Thomas continued to work the goldfields after their deaths but it was a hard life and 18 months later he returned to South Australia. He remarried and settled on a farm near Clare, where he lived until his death more than 40 years later. His surviving daughters Martha and Mary returned here in 1905 to arrange for the grave to be cared for. The stone wall was rebuilt and a headstone erected.
The site remains one of the earliest and best examples of a lone grave in Victoria and serves as a stark reminder of harsh realities of life in the early goldfields.
Ninnes Grave has been preserved thanks to the efforts of Edith Lunn, the Friends of the Ninnes Grave, Cornish Association of Victoria, and the City of Greater Bendigo.
Location
9 Kawana Drive, Maiden Gully 3551 Map
Web Links
→ Ninnes Lone Grave and Reserve (Victorian Heritage Database)
