eHive Object Details

Name/TitleWilliam Pascoe Crook : Old Melbourne Cemetery, c. 1920

About this objectColourised photograph of the hardwood memorial placed over the remains of the Reverend William Pascoe Crook, missionary.

The image shows the upright, weathered, wooden marker surrounded by grass. The marker was fashioned from a slab cut from a gum tree. The top has been cropped in the image but, as seen in similar images, it has a triangular top, decorated with a sundial motif, and quarter-circular shoulders, decorated with fleur-de-lys.

The inscription reads:

In Memory (in Gothic script)
Of the REVd.
WILLIAM PASCOE CROOK
A Zealous and Devoted
Missionary.
In The Marquesas &
SOCIETY ISLANDS
A Faithful Preacher of the
Gospels In N. S. Wales.
Born in Devonshire, Engld.
On the 29th April 1775.
Died at Melbourne on
THE 14th JUNE 1846.
He was one of the first missionaries who
left England on the ship Duff, in the year
1796.
-unreadable verses-

According to Selby, influenced by the death of Captain Cook "by the natives", Crook aged 21, enlisted in the first cohort of missionaries to Polynesia, commissioned by the newly formed London Missionary Society. Most of the missionaries were set down at Tahiti, but Crook and a comrade, who soon deserted, were left at the Marquesas. Crook returned to England after a year during which he learnt the language of the islands. He sailed to Australia in 1803, and after laying the foundation of the Congregational Church in Sydney, he travelled to Tahiti and, with three others, translated the first Polynesian Bible. He spent eighteen years in Polynesia before settling in Melbourne. (pp. 48, 50)

This image is attributed to Everard Studley Miller who photographed many graves and tombstones in the Old Melbourne Cemetery (established in 1837) around 1920 as part of a project led by Isaac Selby to record and commemorate all aspects of Melbourne's second cemetery (the first being at Flagstaff Hill). The RHSV holds original glass negatives and albums of the photographs from this project.

One of the many glass slides purchased from retailers or specifically made for illustrated lectures given by Isaac Selby between c. 1930 and c. 1955 to raise money for the Old Pioneers Memorial Fund.

For more information about this image contact Royal Historical Society of Victoria.

MakerMiller, Everard Studley, 1886-1956.

Maker RolePhotographer

MakerGunn's Slides (Firm)

Maker RoleSlide Maker

Measurements8.2 x 8.2 cm

Period1910-1920

Object TypePhotograph

Subject and Association KeywordsSelby, Isaac, 1859-1956

Subject and Association KeywordsMiller, Everard Studley, 1886-1956.

Subject and Association KeywordsOld Melbourne Cemetery (Melbourne)

Subject and Association KeywordsCrook, William Pascoe, 1775-1846.

Subject and Association KeywordsMissions and missionaries

Subject and Association KeywordsCongregational Church

Subject and Association KeywordsMonuments and memorials

Named CollectionImages collection

Object numberGS-TM-21

Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved