God's Acre.
The main road from Will’s mum’s house into Brisbane passes a small cemetery by Archerfield Airport called God’s Acre. I just assumed that it was the cemetery for the airport and contained the graves of unfortunate people killed in air accidents or aged pilots...not so.The land on which the airport now stands was once occupied by the Jagara people and later purchased by a Thomas Grenier. Thomas and his wife, Mary emigrated from Sussex in1838 and after surviving a Maori uprising, moved to South Brisbane. He became a successful store owner and publican and it was on the 3rd May 1855 in an auction at Brisbane Court House that he bought 640 acres for £1920. Given that the starting price was only £1 an acre he must have had some stiff competition.Thomas and his sons cleared the land on which they grew crops and kept horses which they entered in the local Oxley Creek races. Thomas added farmer and later council alderman to his list of achievements. In October 1859 Thomas and Mary’s son, Volney, then 16, died in a fall from his horse while out fox hunting. He was buried on their land and his grave was the first in the cemetery that still remains today. Thomas died in October 1877 and in his will set aside the ¾ acre site as a burial ground for members of his family and the families of other pioneers in the area. He also left £50 for the upkeep of the surrounding fence.Thomas and Mary are buried beside Volney and other family members in the cemetery which is now one of Brisbane’s oldest and most historic of cemeteries.The land was divided into 3 farms for Thomas and Mary’s sons George, Tom and Franklin. It was Franklin’s farm that most of the present Archerfield covers. Franklin died in 1889 and his farm was bought by the Beatty family in the early 1890s. God ’s acre Cemetary now stands on Beatty Rd which runs along the edge of the airfield.In 1927 Captain Lester Brain, (I’m not making this up!) Chief Flying Instructor for Qantas Airways landed his de Havilland Giant Moth on Franklin’s Farm to see if it was suitable for an airfield. It obviously was and the airport was officially opened on the 1st April 1931 and that is when the Brisbane Council closed the cemetery and restricted future burials only to those who could demonstrate they possessed interment rights. The burial of Olive Vera Grenier was the last at the cemetery in July 1980.As well as members of the Grenier family, there are also a number of Allens buried there and a W.G Rodgers. Other notable burials include Frank Hubert Hall, accidently shot, aged 11 in 1903, and the grave of Francis Ladner.Francis Ladner and his wife emigrated to Australia on 13th November 1864 with their daughter Frances and infant son, Francis and arrived in Brisbane on 21st March 1865 after a terrible voyage plagued with bad weather. Young Frances did not survive the voyage and sadly just over one year later Francis (Snr) was murdered.I found this account, written at the time, on ‘The Friends of God’s Acre’ website:A HORRIBLE murder was committed on Saturday afternoon, and the man who did it afterwards poisoned himself. The following are the particulars so far as we have been able to collect them:—A farmer named Joseph Doel, living at the Eight-mile Plains, near Oxley Creek, rode up to the house of a neighbour (Thomas Freney) and spoke about someone having robbed him. He said that sometime ago he was in difficulties, and he made over a portion of his property to a neighbour. Afterwards he asked the man to give it back to him, and he refused. At that moment a man named Francis Ladner was seen along the road, and Doel immediately started towards him. Freney then heard a shot fired, and saw Ladner fall off his horse, and noticed Doel making towards Brisbane at a gallop. Freney went up to Ladner and found he had been shot in the side. The man, who was dying, was taken to his [i.e. Freney’s] house, and he only lived a short time afterwards. Freney followed the direction taken by Doel, and when he arrived at South Brisbane told Sergeant White what had happened. Doel was then found in a hotel there, and arrested. He was allowed to drink a bottle of lemonade, and was then taken to the watchhouse. On being told the charge, he said—“They have robbed me, and deserve what they got.” He also said, “I have committed a mortal sin; God have mercy on my soul. I have only five minutes to live.” After being placed in a cell, a cry was heard, and Doel was found lying on the floor as if in a fit. A doctor was sent for, but two minutes before one arrived, the man died in great agony. On his person was found a piece of paper containing about a grain of strychnine; it appeared to have been torn open. It was subsequently ascertained that Doel, a short time before his arrest, bought 12 grains of strychnine at Mr. Steele’s, chemist, Edward-street, where he had been in the habit of buying it to poison native dogs. Doel was about fifty years of age, and, we are informed, was unmarried. Ladner was a married man, and lived near to Doel’s farm. An inquest is to be held this forenoon. A more horrible case than this has not happened for a long time.I could not find Francis’s grave.The cemetery also contains a memorial to Robert Copas and Lace Maxwell who died in a flying accident in the Hunter Valley in May 1994. They had flown from Archerfield to Luskintyre Airport to perform joy rides and stunts and on the day in question had taken off with Robert flying and Lace ready to perform a wing-walking stunt but the engine stalled and the plane crashed and burst into flames killing them both.It was the 150th anniversary of God’s Acre in 2009.