After being held at the Berry Museum for several years, it was loaned to the National Museum of Australia, and shown in the Horizons Gallery.

Horizons was an exhibition about the peopling of Australia, with an emphasis on British colonisation and the interaction between indigenous and settler Australians, and Australia's later history as a migrant society and place of destination.

Born at the end of the 18th century, Greer had married in Belfast and worked as a copper plate engraver.

His wife Elizabeth was expecting their fifth child when he was convicted in 1831 of "having in his possession a forged plate of the Bank of Ireland as well as a forged plate and some notes of the Northern Bank".

Sentenced to life, he arrived in Australia in 1832 on the Captain Cook, and its surgeon superintendent described Greer as having brown hair with blue to grey eyes, a dimple in his chin, thin nose and a deep pock pit in his left cheek.

He was assigned to Alexander Berry at Coolangatta as a carpenter.

He received his ticket of leave on August 1, 1840, and on the recommendation of the Wollongong Bench he was allowed to stay in the district.

By this time he had applied for his wife and family had to join him here, but sadly, Greer died aged 42 on June 4, 1841 before they had arrived.

The fact that his grave was given a headstone remains a mystery, given the circumstances of his widow.

She was remarried in 1845 to another Coolangatta convict, John Weeks who had been convicted of desertion from the British Army in 1835 and sentenced to 14 years.

On his death in 1877 he was buried alongside Greer - in the old Jerry Bailey cemetery (at Shoalhaven Heads).

Although no longer visible, that graveyard has been the subject of much interest and research since a photograph of the Greer headstone was published in the South Coast Register in 1985.

Elizabeth Greer moved to Sydney, and she died in 1891 at Petersham, aged 100.

ACCORDING to the Jerry Bailey Burial Ground Research Group, more than 80 burials took place on the site, but no sign remains of any.

Its research has produced the following list, with the year of death, and age of the person:

1830 Bridget Morgan

1841 Thomas Greer

1853 Jane Watts, ch

1862 William Ferguson, 61

1864 Charles Langley, inf

1866 Sarah A. Langley, 4

1866 Charles H. Langley, inf

1866 Albert H. Holden, inf

1866 William Dixon, 30

1866 John Amatto, 13

1873 John Longbottom, inf

1874 Edward Judson, inf

1875 John Sutton, 1

1877 John Weeks, 70

1879 Esau Longbottom, C62

1879 Harriet Nixon, 68

1880 Susan Bloxum, 40

1882 John Longbottom, inf

1883 Richard Chater, 86

1883 Henry Sims, inf

1884 Ann Dobson, 56

1885 Thomas Judson, 1

1885 Agnes Sims, 15

1885 Catherine Collins, inf

1885 William Amatto, inf

1885 Henry S. Pemberton, 45

1885 Alice Tummel, 28

1885 Phillip Tummel, 30

1885 John Amatto, inf

1885 John Ware, 76

1886 Jane Amatto, 36

1886 Susan Bloxum, 40

1888 Caroline Radnor, inf

1888 Eleanor A. Chisnall, inf

1888 Charles Langley, inf

1888 Annie Sutton, 30

1888 Herbert B. Secombe, 1

1888 Ellen Longbottom, inf

1889 William Dixon, 28

1889 Mary J. Davis, 20

1889 James J. Heavens, 78

1890 William Radnor, 7

1890 Jessie Nipple, 70

1890 Sarah E. Smith, 27

1891 John Radnor, 51

1892 Emily Dixon, 1

1892 Julia Moore, 28

1892 James Longbottom, 3

1893 John Dixon, 1

1893 Hannah J. Longbottom, 38

1894 John T. Amatto, 3

1894 Joseph Wellington, inf

1895 Elizabeth Dickson, inf

1895 Ada Dickson, 1

1895 James Longbottom, 42

1895 Catherine Amatto, inf

1895 John Hawken, 70

1896 Joseph M. Amatto, inf

1896 Ellen Chisnall, 7

1896 Esau Longbottom, inf

1897 Susan Carpenter, inf

1898 Archibald Saunders, 19

1898 Ellen Amatto, 5

1898 Amatto (unnamed), inf

1898 Esther Judson, 18

1900 Caroline Edwards, inf

1900 Janet Dixon, 2

1900 John Amatto, 75

1901 Daisy J. Foster, inf

1901 William Judson, 87

1901 George Collins, 21

1902 Elizabeth Methven, 5

1903 Charles Totton, 93

1903 Catherine Amatto, 1

1903 Fredrick Alder, 77

1904 Annie Dixon, 17

1905 Mary Moroney, 77

1905 Alfred J. Sutton, 24

1908 Ada Amatto, 5

1908 George Nipple, 85

1908 John Judson, 65

1912 Mary Moore, 29

1917 William Steele, 80