Coburg Cemetery

I went to Coburg Cemetery primarily to find the grave of the Melbourne sculptor, Charles Web Gilbert. It was an easier task than I expected because Coburg Cemetery now has a Heritage Walk. And Charles Web Gilbert’s grave was one of the stops on the walk.

The self-guided walk starts at the visitor’s rotunda and takes the visitor around 30 graves in the cemetery. There are the graves of notable people like ornithologist George Arthur Keartland, victims of disasters, sporting heroes and politicians. The grave of gangland enforcer John Daniel (Snowy) Cutmore and the graves of murder victims, like police constable David Edward McGrath or bank manager, Thomas Anketell. And the graves of early Coburg’s Chinese residents and the grave of Said Ahmed Shah, the first Moslem religious leader in Melbourne.

The grave of Said Ahmed Shah

The hillside site for Coburg Cemetery was surveyed and gazetted in 1860 but was not used until 1875. The cemetery is divided into denominational compartments and the style of tombs reflects these religious differences. The cemetery is now an attractive, although muddy old cemetery full of examples of late 19^th and 20^th century funerary monuments, statues of angels and other ornamental marble carving. Some of the graves are in bad repair and erosion is causing some monuments to tilt and others to collapse.

Back to Charles Marsh Web (Nash) Gilbert (1867-1925); who made a total of 9 WWI memorials, more than any other Australian sculptor. He also made the Mathew Flinders Memorial next to St Paul’s Cathedral on Swanston St.

Charles Web Gilbert, Matthew Flinders Memorial, Melbourne

Charles Web Gilbert learnt sculpture as an apprentice chef modelling icing-sugar decorations. Mostly self-taught as a sculptor his only formal art training was in drawing. His first studio off was Collins Street, he then at 59 Gore Street where he built his own foundry and started experimenting casting in bronze. He regularly exhibited with the Victorian Artists’ and Yarra Sculptors’ societies and in London at the Royal Academy. Late in 1917 Gilbert joined the Australian Imperial Force as a sculptor in the War Records Section. After that the rest of his life was dominated by making memorials. Gilbert made 9 World War I memorials for the Chamber of Manufactures, Melbourne, the Malvern Town Hall, the British (Australian) Medical Association, Parkville, Shepparton, Burnside, Adelaide, and Broken Hill.

Charles Web Gilbert had always done everything for himself, including his own foundry work. He wore himself out carrying clay for a huge full size model and died suddenly on 3 October 1925. Web Gilbert’s grave in Church of England section of cemetery is very plain with out any memorial sculpture or even a headstone.

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