Construction workers digging new platforms at Central Station for the Sydney Metro have yet again uncovered a human grave – but, for the first time, the grave has a legible nameplate, as The Daily Telegraph reports.
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The 161-year-old grave was identified by archaeologists as belonging to Joseph Thompson, who died in 1858 aged 80. The draper was born in 1779 in the UK, and had 14 kids.
His remains are currently being kept at USyd‘s Shellshear Museum, as Sydney Metro look to find Thompson’s descendants. If they can’t be contacted within 60 days, the remains will be moved to a new burial site by authorities.
Descendants of Thompson – 14 kids!!!, they’ve got to be out there – are encouraged to contact Transport for NSW at sydneymetro@transport.nsw.gov.au or 1800 171 386.
Workers have so far found remains from 60 graves and five vaults at Central, which was originally built in 1855, next to the Devonshire St Cemetery. The cemetery, consecrated in 1820, was shut in 1867.
When the Station expanded in 1901, more than 30,000 bodies from the closed cemetery were exhumed and relocated, but some families never came to collect their relatives’ remains.
A group of archaeologists – Ancient History ain’t so useless after all, huh, Dad? – are reportedly working at Central Station to, in the words of NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance, “ensure all discoveries are properly processed and treated with the utmost respect”.
According to Sydney Metro’s Jon Lamonte, they’ve also come such cool shit as across coins, coffin fixtures and sandstone crypts.
The plan for the Sydney Metro in Central, worth a cool $955 million, is for a new underground concourse, Central Walk, due for completion in 2022, and underground services between Bankstown and Chatswood scheduled to commenced in 2024.
No way this will be the last grave to be found. Who knows how many are down there? Really think about that on your next morning commute.
