By Roselyn Fauth

I found this really challenging to read about. There are so many people who know the grief of loosing a child. There are 250 names of stillboarn babies listed in row 0. Could you help me learn more?

The Free Ground at Timaru's cemetery looks pretty ordinary at first glance. Grass, sky, a neat line of later headstones standing beyond. Nothing here calls attention to itself. Yet this unmarked space holds some of the smallest and most vulnerable members of Timaru’s early community. Many of them were babes who lived for only moments, or not at all, and whose brief presence in the world was carried quietly into the cemetery.

In 1879 the Timaru Herald published a piece titled An Unwelcome Discovery. It described how the cemetery keeper found a number of tiny coffins hidden under footpaths and placed inside other graves. These burials had taken place without permission or record, often at night. Some appeared to contain still-born infants. Others gave rise to concern about whether the remains had been properly identified at all. Whatever the circumstances, the common theme was silence. These were losses carried quietly by families who, for many reasons, felt unable to approach the cemetery through its official channels.

At the same time, the rules governing burials in the 1870s and 1880s made it difficult for families of limited means to mark a grave. Under the regulations in place from 1870 onward, a headstone could only be erected if an exclusive right of burial had been purchased. If no payment was made, the plot became free ground. In 1882 local newspapers reported that people were not allowed to tend or mark these graves, even when they desperately wished to show care. The Cemetery Board kept full authority over the land, and the area could be reused as needed.

For infants, this meant their resting place was rarely permanent. A still-born baby might be laid in free ground with no marker. Another might be placed quietly in an existing grave. A few, as the 1879 report showed, were hidden in places never intended for burials at all. None of these small graves had the legal protection that a purchased plot provided. Without a headstone, without a right of ownership, and without the ability for families to tend the soil, the memory of where these babies lay soon disappeared from the visible landscape.

Row 0 reflects this history. It is a place where the first burials were shaped by poverty, stigma, limited medical understanding, and the practicalities of a young settlement. It is also a place shaped by love. The families who carried tiny coffins into the cemetery at night were not avoiding dignity. They were reaching for the only form of dignity available to them. They wanted their babies to rest in consecrated or recognised ground, even if they could not meet the rules of the time.

Today, the emptiness of Row 0 is not a sign of neglect. It is the legacy of policies that prevented markers from being placed, and of moments of private grief that never entered the official record. The babies are still here. Their presence is held in the soil and in the quiet that settles over this part of the cemetery.

To stand at Row 0 is to acknowledge the earliest losses of a young town. It is to remember those who had no headstone, no burial notice, and no chance to grow into the stories we usually tell about the past. The babes of Row 0 remind us that our shared history include those whose lives were measured in minutes, hours, or days. So sad. 

Timeline: Early Burials and Unmarked Graves in Timaru

1850s–1860s
• Early burials in Timaru occur informally before cemetery regulations are established.
• Infant mortality is high and still-births are often unregistered, as still-birth registration is not required by law.

1870
• Cemetery Reserves Management Ordinance (Canterbury) comes into force.
• A tombstone can only be erected if an exclusive right of burial has been purchased.
• Free ground exists for those unable to pay, but monuments are not permitted and managers may remove any unofficial markers.
• First managers of the Timaru Cemetery are appointed.

1870s (general practice)
• Families who cannot afford a plot have no legal right to mark or tend a grave.
• Free-ground burials are intended to be non-permanent, with land reused when needed.
• Infant and still-born burials often take place quietly and without paperwork.

1875
• Registration of Births and Deaths Act strengthens civil registration, but still-births remain exempt from compulsory registration, creating a legal grey area for burial.

25 February 1879
• Timaru Herald publishes “An Unwelcome Discovery”.
• Cemetery keeper finds secret burials of tiny coffins, including still-born infants, hidden under footpaths and placed in other graves without permission.
• Some burials appear to have been done at night, showing gaps between community practice and official rules.

19 July 1882
• Public letter to the Timaru Herald reports that families are forbidden from tending or marking free-ground graves, causing distress and anger.

20 July 1882
• Timaru Herald editorial confirms the rule:
– Free-ground graves cannot be claimed or tended.
– More than one person may be buried in the same space.
– The land must remain available for future use.
• Editorial questions why modest markers are not allowed as they are in other burial grounds.

Late 1882
• Cemeteries Act 1882 becomes New Zealand’s foundational burial statute.
• Confirms that exclusive rights must be purchased for a headstone to be permitted.
• Free burials may be ordered for the poor, but still without rights to a monument.

After 1882
• Over time, free-ground burials remain unmarked, untended, and often unrecorded, particularly for infants.
• Reuse of land and the natural decay of wooden markers result in the disappearance of early grave locations, including those in Row 0.