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Burial records

The burial records and headstone transcriptions may be of interest to members of the families of those interred. As mentioned, at the time the cemetery was moved, the Methodist church’s burial records were found to be incomplete. Manukau City Council officers compiled additional details from the grave sites and inscriptions and correspondence with the next of kin.

Copies of selected documents from these files can be consulted at Manukau Libraries Central Research Library, including maps of the site and accompanying transcriptions (Bristow, P., ‘Woodside Methodist Cemetery Being Lot 1 DP 51122 [map], Manukau City Council Planning Department, 1973 [h/w annotations]; ‘City of Manukau Reconstruction Woodside Methodist Cemetery Site Plan’ [map], Manukau City Council, September 1975 [h/w annotations]; ‘Woodside Methodist Cemetery’, [transcriptions], [t/s with h/w annotations], MNP MS 65).

Fuller details can be found in the original Manukau City Council files, accessible on request at Manukau City Council archives (Woodside Methodist Cemetery 5902/10, 2 vols, A2843-A2844; Box 5002290823).

Prior to the cemetery’s closure, local members of the New Zealand Genealogical Society also recorded the inscriptions on the headstones and plaques (‘No Stone Unturned’, Auckland Star, 18/12/73, p. 3). This record can be consulted at Manukau Libraries Central Research Library and most other major public libraries (New Zealand Cemetery Records, microfiche 00042/B04.16). It should be noted that the records include the details of names, dates and relationships as given on the headstones, not necessarily any incidental wording, and that there are some minor differences of detail between the NZGS and Manukau City Council records.

In 2005 correspondents to the New Zealand Genealogist magazine suggested that the inscriptions had been recorded at the last minute just before the bulldozers closed in (’31 Years on: Work of NZSG Members Revealed During Demolition’, New Zealand Genealogist Jan/Feb 2005, p. 30; Anne Sandford, ‘Woodside Cemetery’ [letter], New Zealand Genealogist, May/June, 2005, p. 148; commentary by Colleen Main, ibid.). This makes a good story but is untrue. The transcriptions were undertaken by Colleen Main, Pat Adair and Verna Mossong on 18 December 1973, but the tombstones were not removed from the site until 16 December 1975 (‘No Stone Unturned’, op. cit., cf. “The dead are on the move at Wiri because the cemetery’s dying. Day by day it’s being bulldozed to oblivion … Inside a group of tombstones, some broken and weathered by the years, lie on their sides. These can be claimed by relatives…”, ‘Dead on the Move’, Sunday News, 9/11/75, p. 9; Bruce Ringer, ‘More on the Woodside Cemetery’ [letter], New Zealand Genealogist, July/August, 2005, p. 223).

Publication history: ‘Background Paper on the Woodside Methodist Cemetery, 10 Station Road, Manukau City Centre’, first circulated as an internal Manukau City Council document on 29 February 2008. Revised and updated for publication on the Manukau Libraries website in September 2009.

Copyright © Manukau Libraries. This text may be freely used for purposes of private study or research and for non-commercial publication providing that the author and Manukau Libraries are duly acknowledged.

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