Historical Sites and Heritage Locations

The Alice Springs General Cemetery is of significance to the Territory and is valued by the community principally as the last resting place of many individuals and families who played an important pioneering role in the development of the Territory’s pastoral, mining and transport industries, arts and culture, and the areas of education, law and order.

Individuals interred in the Cemetery include noted Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira and Territory architect, Beni Carr Glynn Burnett. Although not officially proclaimed as a Cemetery until 1949, burials occurred between 1933 up until 1995 when the cemetery was closed with exceptions. The relatively open, simple, yet formal Cemetery layout is a reminder that even after the arrival of the railway in 1929 life in the Centre continued to be characterised by harsh and basic conditions.