Located at Launceston’s Elizabeth Gardens, the Workers’ Commemorative Park is a solemn and significant space dedicated to Tasmanians who have lost their lives at work.
This Park was founded by Karen and Guy Hudson whose 16-year-old son Matthew was killed while working at the Killafaddy meatworks in 2004. They wanted a place not just to honour Matthew’s memory, but where all families could go to remember loved ones who did not make it home.
After a search around Launceston, Elizabeth Gardens was chosen for its beauty, accessibility, and its proximity to community hubs like the football stadium.
The park is the only memorial of its kind in Tasmania, and every year on April 28, it becomes the gathering place for Unions Tasmania’s International Workers’ Memorial Day.
It stands not only as a tribute to the lives lost, but as a powerful reminder of the importance of putting workplace safety first every day.
There is meaning in the way this place has been designed.
The design initially takes its cue from a lychgate – also known as a resurrection gate – which is a covered gateway found at the entrance of a traditional English churchyard. It’s a roofed structure, often with two gables, where a coffin stand might be placed while the introductory part of a burial service is read.
The arbours extend through the park on a meandering path to reflect one’s life or to provide a slower journey to reflect and remember.
They are painted a teal colour – a blend of blue and green, Matthew Hudson and Emma’s favourite colours.
The arbours are deliberately incomplete, unfinished like the worker’s life that was taken.
They graduate in height reflecting the variety of people and lives that have been cut short.
The arbours stand within a series of brick ripples. These brick bands emanate from a central space, like ripples on a pond, they reach out and refract back in, revealing the impact that someone’s passing has, and the many that are impacted by the passing of a single worker.
The ripples intersect the existing paths and create new ones, as a death does.
Climbers have been planted at the base of the arbours. Over time, they will grow over them but, like the memories, the arbours will always we there.
There have been other additions to the park that make it the special place it is today. There are two sets of hands sand blasted into a large stone representing parents and families left behind. There are words inscribed at one of the park entrances, and plaques installed. There is an important piece still to come – a bronze casting of a pair of work boots.
We hope to add amenities over time to make the space as useable for families and the community as possible.
Unions Tasmania would like to give deep thanks to Niall Simpson, the architect of this park. Niall first drafted the vision for the park while an employee of Launceston City Council and continued to work on the project well into his retirement to see it completed.
