The six-month project will conclude at the Wellingrove cemetery in the heart of where the man thought to be the last surviving British convict built a new life.

Inverell elder Elizabeth Connors is Henry’s great-granddaughter, and initiated the project to preserve the history of her family ancestor.

“It’s very important to me, because I would like to pass on all of this to my grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and to wider families,” she said at the project’s inception.

Henry was transported in 1849 after serving two years in an English prison for stealing a handkerchief. He made his way to the Wellingrove area where he immersed himself in the local Aboriginal community and established a sawmill.

He married an Aboriginal woman known as Lena, and his family tree includes members of the Boney, Blair, Bowden, Cutmore, Connors, Munro and Williams families. Henry died on May 20, 1913, aged 96. The restoration of the broken headstone was undertaken by the Inverell Reconciliation Group in June of this year.

Inverell master stonemason Gary Taylor of Thorley and Sons set the broken headstone on its face and cast a larger stone around it so the monument may stand upright.

“I don’t do many like that, I’ve been working here for 45 years, actually,” Gary said.

Gary took time to repair the stone’s lettering as it was done in the past.

“My old boss, I used to watch him do it, old Vince Thorley, years ago,” Gary said.

“They’re cut in shape and they drill little holes in them with a little drill, and it’s lead, you tap it in with a little wooden mallet and clean it off,” he explained, and pointed to the letters.

“That’s how they did it in the old days, but you don’t get much of that now; it’s all sandblasting, like I’m doing in there now.”

The formal stone unveiling is on Saturday, November 28 at the Wellingrove Cemetery at 11am for an 11.30 start. 

Flyers with maps to the location may be found at the Linking Together Centre, Inverell Library, Armajun Aboriginal Health Service and the Inverell Tourism Centre.

Everybody is invited to commemorate the event, and asked to bring a picnic lunch and a chair for themselves.

Flyers with maps to the location may be found at the Linking Together Centre, Inverell Library, Armajun Aboriginal Health Service and the Inverell Tourism Centre.

For more information or directions, phone Valerie Williams 0477 900 198, Anthony Dale on 0400 994 046 or Rosemary Breen on 0402 531 844.