Charles Rich

Charles Rich, a digger, recounted, 'While sitting at dinner one lovely Sunday afternoon I received notice from Mr Watkins, the Government contractor, to join another young Welshman in sinking an excavation to make a grave for the diggers slain at the Stockade in the morning. We commenced digging the grave and had been at it for some three or four hours. As it was a very large one we worked very hard, but before we had nearly finished the mournful cavalcade arrived. In consequence of the coffins being place in two tiers, one above the other, they reached to within a foot of the surface, four at the bottom and three on top, but we managed to cover them up by well backing the earth above them. Whether they were afterwards displaced I never heard. The coffins were very rudely made of half inch weatherboards, the covers roughly nailed on, so that the bodies were plainly discernible through the joints in the lids, and the limbs appeared contracted and quite discoloured by smoke and fire, for the tents were burnt by the military who, when they captured the Stockade, fired the encampments with hand grenades. Whilst interring these unfortunates another procession entered the cemetery conveying the body of a digger, a Welshman named Rowlands, who had been shot by a trooper whilst entering his tent after returning from work. The trooper called on him to stand, and as he paid no attention shot him dead in his tracks. The body was buried at no great distance from those of the insurgents.’