Named Monash Reserve in 1939 in honour of Sir John Monash, the WWI Army Commander, the park was the site of an air raid shelter during WWII and a Jewish cemetery before that.

Established in April 1847, twelve people interred there are commemorated on a plaque installed in 2011. Further research has found two more, but there could have been up to twenty burials.

The earliest were three children: Jona Lyons and Elizabeth Nathan in April and May 1850 and Elizabeth Robinson in December 1853. The fathers of these three, Joshua Lyons, Bertram Nathan and George Robinson, placed newspaper advertisements in January 1856 offering a reward of £25 for information leading to the conviction of the ‘malicious persons’ who entered the burial ground and destroyed the headstones.

The other children buried there were Louis Solomon in 1861, Ester Davis in 1862, Rachel Davis, who accidentally drank poison in 1876 and six-month-old Alexander Isidore Sternberg in February 1883, whose father was a storekeeper at Latrobe.

Moses Joseph was laid to rest there in August 1855, but his wife Margaret was buried at the Cypress Street Anglican Cemetery in September 1864.

John Cashmore Israel from Launceston, Simon Seelig, from Deloraine, and Joshua Lyons, a publican from Torquay (East Devonport) were also interred at the Jewish cemetery.

Father and son, Louis and Maurice Nathan were both buried there, in 1858 and 1893 respectively. Maurice Nathan, the last known burial, was a produce merchant and general storekeeper at Latrobe. His body was brought to Launceston by train, and as the synagogue was closed, his funeral left the home of EH Panton at Inveresk.

Daniel Room, whose property Mayfield bordered the burial ground, was caretaker and key-holder until 1901. He rented part of the land and sent accounts for his work to Elizabeth Fall at Fallgrove, Evandale. The old cemetery fell into disrepair, horses grazed there, and it was used as a timber yard.

In May 1938 the trustees offered the land to the Launceston Council. A plan of grave positions was prepared, the remaining headstones were removed for ‘safe keeping’, the dividing fence was dismantled, stone curbing was constructed along South Street and swings installed. There is no record of the bodies being relocated.

In March 1942, air raid trenches were dug in Monash Reserve a distance from the cemetery site, but six months later they were levelled, and the park became a children’s playground once more.