nearby lands. Surveyor James Meehan was instructed to lay out a town at Wilberforce on 26 December 1810. Macquarie also selected land for a church on high ground near this site. Meehan laid out 2 acres for a burial ground at Wilberforce on 5 January 1811. On 2 February 1811, Macquarie instructed Reverend Samuel Marsden to consecrate the burial grounds at towns on the Hawkesbury including Wilberforce. Surveyor Evans would show him the areas set aside. Macquarie issued an order on 11 May 1811 that deceased persons must be buried in consecrated burial grounds and no longer on their farms and that the local settlers were to enclose these burial grounds as soon as possible. Reverend Cartwright was paid £10 before 1 July 1812 for "enclosing the Burial Ground at the Township of Wilberforce". The earliest burials in Wilberforce Cemetery were of three drowned men, James Hamilton (Hambleton), Joseph Ware and John Tunstal on 13 December 1811, but their gravesites are unknown. Margaret Chaseling was buried in the cemetery in October 1815 and is the oldest burial for which the site is known. Soon afterwards, Anthony Richardson, a Second Fleet arrival, was buried on 4 February 1816. His burial marker is the oldest to survive. A schoolhouse-cum-chapel was also erected on the church site nearby so that the Macquarie ideal of the church, school and burial ground on the highest point demonstrating order and religion was realised in the town of Wilberforce. In July 1822, Macquarie reported that at Wilberforce he had erected, "A Burial Ground of 4 Acres Contiguous to the Temporary chapel, enclosed with a Strong Fence." It is notable that the measurement does not agree with the area as laid out by surveyor Meehan, which was 2 acres (0.8 ha). The area of the oldest section is close to 2 acres. Macquarie appears to have simply made an error when listing his achievements in the colony. Until 1826, burials at Wilberforce were recorded in the register for St Matthew's at Windsor. A separate burial register for Wilberforce Cemetery commenced that year. Between 1811 and 1825, there were a considerable number of burials in the cemetery who were early ex-convict arrivals. Many were later joined in the cemetery by their families and descendants. The existing spatial configuration of the Cemetery is also striking. A high number of older grave markers also survive, many of them for ex-convicts who