Werona Armstrong

Sectarianism in the Cemetery: Mapping the Denominational Divisions in the Redcliffe Cemetery

Werona Armstrong

What happens when the official records are silent, but the cemetery landscape still has a story to tell?

Cemeteries are more than places of burial. They are sacred spaces with layouts and monuments that reveal the religious and social divisions of the communities who built them, including the sectarian tensions between Protestant and Roman Catholic communities.

From the early colonial period, Australian burial grounds were designed with designated denominational sections. This system was formalised in 1844 under Governor George Gipps through the General Cemetery Act, and many cemeteries across the country still reflect this layout today.

Yet the historical records for Redcliffe Cemetery are silent on denominational divisions. But what if the cemetery landscape tells a different story?

By using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to map individual burials across the cemetery and visualise them over time, previously hidden patterns begin to emerge. The spatial distribution of graves reveals informal clusters of religious affiliation that were never formally documented. When viewed chronologically, these patterns also show how burial practices gradually changed as sectarian divisions shifted within the Redcliffe community.

Join this session to discover how mapping the past can reveal stories that the historical record leaves behind.

About Werona

Werona Armstrong is a graduate of the University of New England, where she studied cemeteries as part of her history degree. Living on the Redcliffe Peninsula, she became fascinated by Redcliffe Cemetery after noticing patterns in the burial layout during visits. That curiosity led to a research project exploring how burial patterns and spatial layout reflect the social and religious history of the community.

In her professional life she works in the museum industry, surrounded by history every day. In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her family, researching family history, and joking that she is 'Snow White' to her small but much-loved menagerie of pets.