Friends of Lutwyche Cemetery

Friends of Lutwyche Cemetery is a dedicated group of volunteers interested in conserving and protecting the history and heritage of Lutwyche Cemetery. They clean and restore various headstones and graves with permission from Brisbane City Council and the families of the deceased.

Lutwyche Cemetery commenced burials in 1878. Around 1940, the burials register was archived in Qld State Archives and the responsibility for the cemetery fell to Brisbane Council. At some later stage, the burial register was used to create the BCC online register.

Originally, the sections were made up of Church of England and Roman Catholic areas; the sections have now been changed to reflect a more modern cemetery layout.

After the old Paddington Cemetery in Milton closed in 1875 having reached its capacity, many remains and memorials were removed to Lutwyche. Other remains from other cemeteries were also moved to Lutwyche for family reasons.

During World War I, the remains of deceased soldiers were left at the battlefield. After the war, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission identified the remains and created memorial sites near where they died. This meant that many families had no physical access to a memorial for their son, brother or father. Families made mention of the deceased on headstones, on family graves. Many of these have been identified and are marked as cenotaphs with a link to the overseas memorial where is it known.

World War II deceased veterans were sometimes repatriated to Australia and there are Veterans’ graves in Sections 7, 8 and 9. A project has been running in since 2021 to identify all war veterans in Lutwyche and give them appropriate recognition.

In 2022 a small group of Findagrave volunteers attempted to match all burials in the original handwritten burial register and the BCC online register to the monumental inscriptions made by the Qld Society of Genealogists. Where possible Qld BMD records were also researched and noted on the memorials. This resulted in being able to put names and photos to many unmarked graves. The index and the monumental inscriptions were a valuable asset to identifying the deceased. Work is ongoing in photographing all plots in Lutwyche and matching them to Findagrave memorials.