Arthur Street cemetery was the first cemetery built in Dunedin

Dunedin

Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. It is situated on the City Rise

City Rise

City Rise is an inner suburb of the New Zealand city of Dunedin. One of the city's older suburbs, it is, as its name suggests, centred on the slopes which lie close to the city centre, particularly those closest to the city's original heart of The Exchange...

, on the corner of Arthur Street and Rattray Street, on the slopes overlooking the city's centre, which lies 500 metres to the east. The first burial at the site was of surveyor's labourer James Campbell, buried on October 29, 1846, over a year before the settlement of Dunedin was founded in 1848. Coincidentally, the first christening service to be held in Dunedin occurred on the same day; both services were conducted by Rev. Charles Creed.

The cemetery served the young settlement until the early 1860s, when the rapid expansion of Dunedin due to the Central Otago Gold Rush

Central Otago Gold Rush

The Central Otago Gold Rush was a gold rush that occurred during the 1860s in Central Otago, New Zealand...

 made its location inconvenient. The cemetery was closed and the remains relocated in 1865.

The location of the cemetery is marked by an obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...

, erected in 1880, which is modelled on London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

's Cleopatra's Needle

Cleopatra's Needle

Cleopatra's Needle is the popular name for each of three Ancient Egyptian obelisks re-erected in London, Paris, and New York City during the nineteenth century. The London and New York ones are a pair, while the Paris one comes from a different original site where its twin remains...

. The monument lists the names of the 60 or so known burials at the site. Many of those buried were children, and several were people who died at sea on their way to New Zealand.

The site has been used for several purposes since the cemetery closed, notably a military barracks during the 1860s, a meteorological station, and a lunatic asylum. Middle District School, one of the city's first (now Arthur Street School), moved to occupy part of the site in 1877.

The site is now partly in the grounds of Otago Boys' High School

Otago Boys' High School

Otago Boys' High School is one of New Zealand's oldest boys' secondary schools, located in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. It was founded on 3 August 1863 and moved to its present site in 1885. The main building was designed by Robert Lawson and is regarded as one of the finest Gothic revival...

and partly a public park, Arthur Street Reserve.