Pioneer women of South Brisbane Cemetery

Long before skyscrapers and city streets, women helped carve Queensland from the wild ground up — and their stories still echo among the headstones.

The Pioneer Women of South Brisbane Cemetery is a stirring night-time journey through South Brisbane Cemetery (SBC), where you’ll uncover the remarkable stories of the women who helped shape the colony’s earliest days with grit, heart, and sheer determination.

Seen as the perfect companion to our Women of South Brisbane Cemetery tour, this experience steps even further back in time — shining a light on the lives of female pioneers whose contributions helped forge the foundations of Queensland society. Drawn directly from historical records, these stories honour the women who faced isolation, hardship, and untamed frontiers — and still left their mark on history.

Expect to meet:

• SBC’s oldest stone, a convict ship, & a long-forgotten journey from Sydney’s penal settlement
• Queensland’s first female courier on horseback, leaving history in her wake…& dust!
• Bush, bark huts and bare hands: Pioneering the Port Curtis region
• Zion Hill’s first daughter, in a shadow of Moreton Bay’s convict colony
• The 106-year-old Irish Máthair-Mhór rover – who dubbed Brisbane a ‘dirty old hole for women’

Guided by knowledgeable local historians, including award-winning cemetery researcher Tracey Olivieri, this moving evening walk is a respectful, insightful, and often surprising way to explore South Brisbane Cemetery by torchlight beneath the stars.

Come walk with the past — and meet the women who helped build a Brisbane and Queensland’s future.

All of our tours are not-for-profit, with all money raised going to our cemetery history and maintenance projects.

Bookings

Bookings required via the Friends of South Brisbane Cemetery website.

Venue address

South Brisbane Cemetery, 185 Annerley Road, Dutton Park