A WALK INTO HISTORY
Conducted by Friends of Southampton Old Cemetery

On Sunday 30th January a few WELHS members joined the Shipwreck and Maritime Walk around Southampton's historic cemetery adjoining the Common. Our member John Avery and Southampton tourist guide Geoff Watts pointed out various graves to a group of 62 visitors.
The Cemetery opened in 1846 was one of the first in the country to be opened and managed by a local council. The famous landscape and garden designer John Claudius Loudon was engaged by the town council but his plans were not used.
There are about 30 graves in the cemetery associated with the Titanic. The Titanic sank in April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg. None of the graves of the victims actually contain the body as the victims were either buried at sea or at Halifax, Nova Scotia. The West End Museum has a small tribute to the local resident James Jukes whose body was not ever recovered.
The White Star company insisted that any bodies that were to be transported back to Europe would be at the normal charge for freight, few families especially those of the local crew were able to afford these charges. In contrast to Southampton the cemeteries at Halifax are kept in first class order.
The Rhone and the Wye were wrecked in a hurricane that swept the West Indies, over 80 ships were wrecked or damaged. Reports of the damage read very similarly to the havoc caused by the recent Tsunami. The monument has been restored by members of the Friends of Southampton Old Cemetery, a conservation group. The shipwreck of the Rhone is now an internationally known scuba diving site (picture of monument courtesy John Dunkason).
The Royal Mail Lines ship the Douro was the vessel that brought back the news of the loss of the Rhone and the Wye. She too some 14 years later was also to meet her end by sinking.
Continued on page 5

THE DOURO AND THE RHONE & WYE SHIPWRECK MEMORIALS

SOME OF THE WALKERS HAVING SITE SAFETY EXPLAINED

THE OVERGROWN & DILAPIDATED STATE OF THE CEMETERY

JOHN AVERY EXPLAINS THE FINER POINTS OF A MEMORIAL