34. TABERNACLE CEMETERY
Lot 91 Tabernacle Road

The Tabernacle Church and Yilki cemetery were established by the Rev. Ridgeway William Newland, the first Congregational Minister who settled at Yilki (part of present day Victor Harbor) in 1839. Born in 1790 in Hampshire he was ordained in 1817. He migrated with his family to South Australia in 1839.

Newland believed in freedom, social justice and religious equality. With a large family he saw South Australia as a land of promise. He had been selected by the Colonial Missionary Society to take a group of 34 settlers to South Australia. He was their first spiritual leader and one of his first actions upon arrival was to build a church.

The Tabernacle church at Yilki, Aboriginal for 'a place by the sea', became the centre of activity for many years. The Tabernacle Church was the first Congregational church in the Southern District.

Today little remains in the cemetery. There is a monument with upper and lower inscriptions, a plaque remembering William Henry Hunt who became the miller in Gibson Ave, and a plaque with a list of names of those buried here.