Camperdown Cemetery - Ghosts

Ghosts

• Camperdown Cemetery has one undisputed "ghost" as a permanent resident- Bathsheba Ghost, the second matron Matron of the Sydney General Hospital. However there are those who claim that she is not simply a ghost in name alone, but has been seen attending the sick in St Stephen's Rectory.
• The figure of a curious old man in a brown frock coat has often said to have been sighted sitting on the grave of William Ebbetts, watching people weeding the native grasses or tending the rose bushes. Children have claimed to have talked to him. He disappears when adults approach him.
• It has been claimed that on moonless nights a man in early 19th century military uniform views the stars with a telescope near the grave of Major Mitchell.
• The most sensational ghost story, and one that developed rapidly in form from the time of its first telling in the mid 1990s, is the story of Hannah Watson and her lover. Hannah, the wife of Captain Thomas Watson, the Harbour Master of Port Jackson, according to the legend, was having an affair with Captain John Steane of the Royal Navy. Thomas Watson, on discovering his wife's infidelity, cursed the lovers. Hannah wrote to Steane, begging him not to return to Sydney, but it was too late. Hannah Watson died and was buried in the cemetery. John Steane outlived Hannah by only a few days. The ship in which he was returning to the arms of his beloved was the ill-fated Dunbar. John Steane's body was one of the few that was recovered intact. It is buried in a separate grave near the Dunbar Tomb, and only a few metres from the plot where Thomas Watson had recently buried his wife. It is claimed that Hannah Watson has been seen emerging from her tomb in the form of a ghostly grey lady. She is said to drift slowly to the grave of her erstwhile lover. Although the tale has been told many times, and has been used as the basis for a work of fiction, no investigation into the possibility of a love-affair between Hannah Watson and Captain John Steane has yet been made. John Steane's descendants continue to live in the vicinity of Newtown.