Music In The Park (documentation)
The late afternoon sun shone its soft yellow light on the walls that framed the church and its cemetery grounds located in the park.
This is the cemetery ground where Eliza Donnithorne is buried.
Her life experiences became the inspiration for the character of the eccentric Miss Havisham in Dickens’s “Great Expectations”.
Miss Donnithorne lived with her father, James Donnithorne, in Camperdown Lodge on King St Newtown.
She lived there till her death in 1886.
The Donnithornes were descended from ancient Cornish stock, untitled nobility.
James became a good friend of Prince George, but through their extravagances, James amassed debts in his father’s name and fell out of sorts.
He was sent to India where he worked his way up the career and social ladder and retired to the Sydney hamlet of Newtown.
Eliza showed the same stubbornness as her father when she rejected any suggestion of an arranged marriage.
She would only marry someone she loved.
This caused friction between her and her father and it was during that time she found refuge at St Stephen’s Anglican church where she met George Cuthbertson.
George was a clerk and was not deemed to be a worthy suitor by Mr Donnithorne.
Eliza and George would secretly meet in the grounds of the Camperdown cemetery.
When Mr Donnithorne discovered that his daughter was spending a lot of her time with George, he forbade her to see him anymore.
But it was to no avail because as soon as he was away on business, she would send her trusted servant out to George who would ride out on horseback to Camperdown Lodge to spend time with her.
After much struggle and opposition Mr Donnithorne finally conceded but he had made it clear to George that he didn’t approve of his love for his daughter and warned him of dire consequences if he ever strayed during their marriage.
On the wedding day the front of Camperdown Lodge was lined with horse drawn carriages waiting to take the bride and groom to St Stephen’s for the ceremony.
King Street was filled with onlookers waiting to catch a glimpse at the lifestyle of the rich and noble.
But they waited in vain for George never showed up and when Eliza became aware of it she remained in an emotional state for several weeks and ordered that the wedding finery be left untouched.
And so it was that it remained untouched till the day she died.
Unbeknownst to everyone Eliza was pregnant to George and when she gave birth to a baby girl she was made to give the baby away to protect her reputation.
Her misery was cemented for the rest of her life when she learnt the baby had died and was not told of what. After her father died she became the eccentric recluse that history remembers her for.
Her refuge was lite
