Listen to the Lilydale Cemetery historical narrative:
Less than a year after the first township land sale, 4ha of land was set aside for Lilydale Cemetery on July 2, 1861. The elevated site at the corner of Victoria and Nelson roads was surrounded by bush. In the distance was the Dandenong Ranges while in the valley below, Lilydale township boasted only a handful of buildings and homes.
In 1863 a public meeting was held at Lilydale Hotel to appoint Trustees to manage the land, establish cemetery rules and fix charges for burial. The trustees from the various denominations were formally gazetted on December 14, 1863. They were Dennis Rourke, George Langdon, James Glennon, William Commerford, Nicholas Gaudeon (Gaudion), Thomas Macintyre and Joseph Wilson.
The first recorded burials were in 1864 but it took until1877 to finalise the cemetery layout which was based on a simple grid system with distinct denominational sections.
Some of the people interred in the cemetery are Dame Nellie Melba and her father, David Mitchell, Jessie Vasey, founder of the War Widows Guild and Vasey Homes, artists Ernest Buckmaster, William Blamire Young and Mabel Young and Jimmy Ah-Tak one of the many Chinese market gardeners of Lilydale.
Today the cemetery is closed and all burials are at Lilydale Memorial Park further north along Victoria Road.