It is fortunate for posterity that Group Captain Rupert Taylor, a Johannesburg businessman in 1964 became interested in the old Simon’s Town Seaforth Cemetery or the ‘Old Burying Ground’, as it is called. Like his war-time contemporary ‘Sailor’ Malan he began his service career in the Navy before switching to the Airforce during the Second World War. While in the Navy he used to occasionally sit under a plaque to Midshipman Hammill in this cemetery admiring the sea view. When he visited the cemetery many years later, he was dismayed by the all-round decay and dereliction. He started paying a monthly stipend to the Simon’s Town Municipality to as he called it, ‘at least stop the encroachment of weeds’. Reporter Carl Birkby then wrote an article for the Sunday Times called ‘Vanishing Africana …. written in a forlorn graveyard.’ This attracted much needed attention to the dismal state of this historical cemetery and the urgent need to intervene. In 1968 the War Graves Board informed the Municipality that it intended to restore the Simon’s Town Cemetery and establish a Garden of Remembrance in what used to be the Naval Cemetery. Work commenced in 1973 and the dedication ceremony took place in October 1977.
This Cemetery should feature high on one’s bucket list of places to visit in the Cape Peninsula as it offers something to anyone who has an interest in South African or British maritime history.
The Garden of Remembrance provides insight into the lives of Royal Navy seamen during...
