Interesting graves in South Australia: Richard Gloyne

Richard Gloyne’s grave is difficult to access without a four-wheel drive over rough ground when the Kanyaka creek is running although it is only 100 metres east of the road to Hawker. As you travel north about 5 km on from the well known Kanyaka Station ruins with its own tiny graveyard and its own string of interesting stories you will come across an advisory sign indicating historic ruins.
This sign refers to the Blackjack Hotel that stood on the west side of the highway and has now virtually disappeared. The hotel was the largest building of twenty-two rooms on two levels in the Kanyaka township established in 1863. The main purpose of the town was in fact the hotel built to lessen the impact on travellers calling at the Kanyaka Station itself. In fact the hotel site predated the town having been an eating-house established in 1859. The hotel was given the name, Great Northern, but the eating-house name, Blackjack, was preferred locally.
Richard Gloyne came to South Australia leaving a wife and two children back in England to work as a labourer in the district. Local tradition has it that he fell from the balcony of the hotel, but why bury him just across the road on the bank of the creek? Perhaps this site was planned as the town’s cemetery?
Research reveals a possible answer to the siting of the grave a mere five km from the Kanyaka Station cemetery, which suggests that his body was not welcomed in consecrated ground. No death registration exists for Richard Gloyne and while this is not all that uncommon for remote early deaths in South Australia, it also signals the possibility of an inquest. It seems that officials were not all that clear on procedure. The magistrate should have arranged to forward the findings of the inquest on to the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, but clearly this never eventuated. Searchers can find a number of notices in Government Gazettes reminding readers of the need to procure Death certificates indicating that this was not an uncommon problem.
The inquest revealed that Richard Gloyne age 45 suicided by hanging on 20 March 1871.

Sources
GRG 1/27 1871 (23) Inquest 1871 Abstract 23: 23 Mar 1871
Geoffrey Manning, Place names of South Australia, 1990 p163
Hans Mincham, Hawker Hub of the Flinders, 1980 p27
Biographical Index of South Australians 1836–1885 Vol 2 p578
Photograph: Genine Jaunay Sep 2001

Sacred To the memory of Richard Gloyne Who died at Kanyaka Hotel March 20, 1871 Aged 45