The land is Part Section 130 in the Hundred of Jutland (formerly South Rhine) .

The historic title to the cemetery can be found here:   South Rhine Cemetery Title

A timeline of ownership is set out below:

• •  Section 130 in the Hundred of South Rhine (comprising 66 acres or thereabouts) was granted to James Shearer on 31 December 1856.  This pre-dated the Torrens Title Act which came into effect in 1858.
  • This land passed to his son James after the death of James senior in 1882.
  • There was a process in 1883-1884 to transfer the land to James Shearer junior in accordance with the instructions of his father’s Will, and to bring the title under the Torrens Title Act.
  • On 6 August 1886 title to the cemetery (part Section 130) was transferred to John Murray, Peter Miller, John McCallum, James Shearer, and Richard Godfree as joint tenants.
  • This was almost 20 years after the first burial (of Frances Shearer in 1867) so the land had functioned informally as a cemetery for some years.
  • On 26 June 1975 the cemetery was transferred to Presbyterian Trusts Corporation
  • On 15 October 1987 it was transferred to Uniting Church in Australia Property Trust

  This is a 90 year gap, (1867 to 1975) in ownership by which stage all original joint owners would have long since died. It appears that there wasn’t any effort from the ‘head office’ of the Presbyterian Church in SA to make certain that the ownership of cemeteries was properly maintained unless advice came from the local church, when the individual owners died. However this is easy to understand. It would have cost money to transfer the land.