Qualla: Somerset Graves Site https://qualla.com/somerset-graves-site en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:28 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/j/6/somerset-graves-site-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Somerset Graves Site https://qualla.com/somerset-graves-site Somerset Graves Site: Introduction https://qualla.com/somerset-graves-site/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The headstone of a pearl diver named Cancan faces a different direction from every other grave in the cemetery. Oriented north-south rather than the conventional east-west, cracked across its marble face and held together with fencing wire and a star picket, it is the oldest known burial in the Somerset Graves Site -- dating to 1890, the same year the RMS Quetta sank in the Torres Strait nearby. This small, 2,379-square-meter patch of ground on the northwest edge of Somerset Bay contains just seven marked graves, a memorial cenotaph, and a monument to a doomed explorer. Together, they compress more than a century of Cape York's turbulent history into a space smaller than a suburban house block.

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]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/j/6/somerset-graves-site-wp/rnj6-somerset-graves-site-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Somerset Graves Site: An Outpost Named for a Duke https://qualla.com/somerset-graves-site/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Somerset was established in 1864 as a joint venture between the Queensland and British governments, intended as a port of refuge and refueling depot near the tip of Cape York Peninsula. Governor Bowen had sailed from Brisbane aboard HMS Pioneer in 1862 to select the site, choosin...

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]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/j/6/somerset-graves-site-wp/rnj6-somerset-graves-site-an-outpost-named-for-a-duke.mp3 0:06 2 full Somerset Graves Site: The Jardine Legacy https://qualla.com/somerset-graves-site/ Photo credit Heritage branch staff, CC BY 4.0. No family is more closely identified with Somerset than the Jardines. John Jardine arrived in 1864 as the settlement's first Police Magistrate. His sons Frank and Alick had already undertaken a grueling overland expedition from Rockhampton to Cape York, driving the first cattle i...

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]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/j/6/somerset-graves-site-wp/rnj6-somerset-graves-site-the-jardine-legacy.mp3 0:06 3 full Somerset Graves Site: Pearl Divers and the Price of Shell https://qualla.com/somerset-graves-site/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The northern section of the cemetery belongs to the pearl divers. Cancan's grave, the earliest known burial, dates to 1890. Nearby lies Kobori Itchimatsu, a Japanese pearl diver who died in 1909. Itchimatsu came from Nishi Mukai village in Wakayama prefecture, a region that suppl...

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]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/j/6/somerset-graves-site-wp/rnj6-somerset-graves-site-pearl-divers-and-the-price-of-shell.mp3 0:06 4 full Somerset Graves Site: What Remains at the Edge of the Map https://qualla.com/somerset-graves-site/ Photo credit Elaine Sinnamon, CC BY 4.0. Between the cemetery's two grave areas stands the Kennedy Memorial Monument, unveiled on 13 December 1948 to mark the hundredth anniversary of Edmund Besley Court Kennedy's failed attempt to explore Cape York Peninsula -- an expedition in which Kennedy himself was killed. The mon...

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Image: Elaine Sinnamon | CC BY 4.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/n/j/6/somerset-graves-site-wp/rnj6-somerset-graves-site-what-remains-at-the-edge-of-the-map.mp3 0:06 5 full