Burke and Wills Memorial

Burke and Wills, the leader and second in command of the ill-fated expedition to cross the Australian continent, died on their return journey at Cooper's Creek in June 1861. Their bodies were exhumed and returned to Melbourne on 29 December 1862 and interned here on 21 January 1863 (Australia's first state funeral). Subsequently, in May 1866 the monument commemorating the explorers was erected over the grave site. This monument, a large Harcourt granite block, is twelve feet high by six feet square at the base and tapers to 5 feet square at the top. The block itself weighs nearly 30 tons and was the largest block ever quarried in Victoria and it was one of the most difficult undertakings ever effected in the colonies to get it from the quarry to the cemetery. The inscriptions on the four faces on the base were added in March 1873. This grave is one of the most visited in the cemetery.

Australian history site.