Mersey Vale Memorial Park

In 1968 Devonport, Latrobe and Kentish Councils entered into a three way agreement to jointly establish and operate a central lawn cemetery for the people of the three municipalities. This was a forty year agreement which included the establishment of the cemetery on land in Quoiba which was purchased by the three Council’s from the estate of William Henry Constable for the sum of $24,000. Devonport City Council operated and administered the Lawn Cemetery for the life of the agreement on behalf of the three Councils. At the end of the agreement Devonport Council took over the sole role of operation and administration of the cemetery

Mersey Vale Memorial Park is the burial place for Joseph Lyons, former teacher, Tasmanian Treasurer, Premier of Tasmania and Prime Minister of Australia who died in office in 1939. His wife, Dame Enid Lyons, former trainee teacher, mother of eleven children, went on to become the first female member of the House of Representatives and first woman in a Federal Cabinet. From 1916 the couple lived with their extended family at Home Hill in Devonport.