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Nelson Historical Society Journal, Volume 2, Issue 1, 1966

Hallowell Cemetery:

Hallowell Cemetery:

Known as the Collingwood Street Cemetery, the Old Burial Ground, and ran from Collingwood Street up to Shelbourne Street.

Hallowell, Admiral Sir Benjamin, was a captain under Nelson. He was a Canadian, a giant of a man, very strong and well liked by Nelson. He is said to have presented Nelson with a coffin made from the mainmast of L'Orient, which blew up at the Battle of the Nile. The coffin generally stood behind Nelson's chair. Nelson wrote, after the Battle of the Nile: "Had it not been for Troubridge, Ball, Hood and Hallowell, I declare I would have sunk under the fatigue of refitting the squadron."

It seems strange that such a hearty person as Hallowell should have a cemetery named after him but it was done and although the name is now lost and the cemetery closed, faint echoes of it still ring in the ears of the City Council at times.

The cemetery lay between Shelbourne Street and Collingwood Street behind what is now the Education Board offices but which formerly was the Nelson Girls' Central School. This same site was occupied in the 60's by an earlier building—the Nelson Gaol, with its memories of the Maungatapu Murderers whose graves lie there but, we are told, outside the fence of the cemetery. The cemetery area was divided into a Roman Catholic section in upper Shelbourne Street, a Lutheran section below this in Shelbourne Street and the remainder lying towards Collingwood Street and used commonly. The Roman Catholic section was too small for a church and burial ground and long before the cemetery was closed another Roman Catholic church was built on Sion Hill in Manuka Street. The Lutheran Church remained in Shelbourne Street for many years. There is a painting of it at Isel. The Collingwood Street Cemetery was closed in 1885 but some of the graves are still discernible and several gravestones and Cyprus trees still remain. The Jane Bond papers, especially No. 6, give quite a full account of the cemetery.