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History of the Port of Fremantle with Emphasis on Victoria Quay
David Hutchison
Hutchison, David 1991, History of the Port of Fremantle with Emphasis on Victoria Quay, part of the volume Victoria Quay and Its Architecture, Its History and Assessment of Cultural Significance, City of Fremantle. Numbered separately as pp. 1-154.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always with any research into Fremantle's history, the generous assistance of Larraine Stevens of the Fremantle City Library has been invaluable. We also thank other members of the Library staff, as well as staff of the Planning Department of the City of Fremantle for commissioning this study and for assisting with it - Agnieshka Kiera and Ross Bishop in particular; staff of the Battye Library of Western Australian History ; and staff of the Fremantle Port Authority for giving us access to early maps and plans and to the minutes of Fremantle Harbour Trust Commissioners' meetings - the Secretary to the. Board, Rod Townsend, and the Librarian, Sunita Thillainath, in particular.
A research assistant needs to be patient, willing, diligent and accurate. Tanya Suba has demonstrated all these qualities in good measure.
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INTRODUCTION
The authors were instructed, in the brief from the City of Fremantle, to address four issues:
(i) Documentation of the history (major stages of development) and architecture of the Quay area wharf buildings.
(ii) Assessment of the area's significance as well as the significance of surviving wharf buildings, and the identification of needs for further investigation, and definition of the scope/areas for such investigation.
(iii) Architectural evaluation of the condition of the buildings .
(iv) Statement of significance of historic areas of Victoria Quay and wharf buildings.
(v) Statement of conservation policy.
Item (i) is dealt with in Part I of the report; the other issues in Part II.
It soon became evident that a study of the history and heritage significance of Victoria Quay required a broader and longer historical context. By beginning this study in 1827, and by giving at least some of the social and economic context, it has been possible to at least adumbrate how intimately the history of the town of Fremantle meshes with the history of its port facilities. The heritage of Victoria Quay should not be assessed in isolation.
This story of the development of the port of Fremantle, has been divided into three chapters, based on the stages analysed by Wagner (1988, p. 35), with some further subdivision:
Chapter 1: 1827-1897: EARLY PORT FACILITIES
This is the period from the selection of Swan River as a site for a settlement to the opening of the Inner Harbour:
1.1 : 1827-1829 : Choosing the site
1.2 : 1829-1837 : Open sea anchorage
1.3 : 1838-1891 : The sea jetties
1.4 : 1892-1897 : Construction of the Inner Harbour.
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Chapter 2: 1897-1955: INNER HARBOUR DEVELOPMENT
This is the period of further development of the Inner
Harbour, :
2.1: 1897-1918: Consolidation and War
2.2: 1919-1945: Readjustment, Depression and War
2.3: 1946-1955: Modernisation
Chapter 3: 1956-1989: OUTER HARBOUR AND RECENT INNER HARBOUR
DEVELOPMENTS
3.1 : 1956-1970 : The Heyday of the Passenger Trade
3.2 : 1971-1989 : Recent Developments
Tull (1985, p. 118) has related the development of the port of Fremantle to the schema for 'Anyport' devised by J. Bird:
Era. General characteristics of each era. Evidence for each era at Fremantle .
1. Primitive. Establishment of port on an estuary. The port develops lineally along the waterfront, with storage and handling facilities being established. Ships anchored in Gage Roads with lighterage.
2. Marginal quay extension. The lineal development of the port begins to outstrip the areal growth of the town. Nil.
3. Marginal quay elaboration. The construction of jetties and hythes (cuts in the river bank) which increase port capacity without greatly increasing the area of the port. Jetties provided from Fremantle shoreline, with lighterage continuing for larger vessels.
4. Dock elaboration. The opening of wet docks. Nil.
5. Simple lineal quayage. Over 1,500 ft of uninterrupted quayage with 26 ft of water minimum alongside. Commenced with opening of Inner Harbour 1897.
6. Specialized quayage. Prevision for large-scale industry and bulk cargoes, with deep water. Commenced with provision of deep water access to Outer Harbour in 1955.
Source: J. Bird. Seaport Gateway of Australia (London 1968), p. 6-12. 96.
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For comparison the divisions of this study are correlated with Bird's schema below:
Bird's eras. Divisions of this study.
1. Primitive 1.2 : 1829-1837: Open sea anchorages
2. Marginal quay extension
3. Marginal quay 1.3 : 1838-1891: The sea jetties elaboration & 1.4 : 1892-1897: Construction of the Inner Harbour
4. Dock elaboration
5. Simple lineal 2 : 1897-1955: INNER HARBOUR quayage DEVELOPMENT
6. Specialized 3 : 1956-1989: OUTER HARBOUR quayage AND RECENT INNER HARBOUR DEVELOPMENT
[unnumbered page]
SPECIAL NOTE : VICTORIA QUAY AND ITS BUILDINGS PART I
(To be inserted between pp 3 and 4 of the manuscript)
1. Discrepancies between plans and some references to the Transit Sheds in the FHT (initially half-yearly, later annual) caused us to research the Minutes of meetings of the Commissioners of the FHT. We discovered that the order of denotation of the sheds (A, B, C ... etc.) was reversed by a decision of the Commissioners in December 1904, but that this decision was not mentioned in subsequent Reports. The Chronology (Appendix II) has been revised in the light of this. Later the text of Part I will need to be revised to take account of it. In the meantime, please read the relevant sections of Part I by reference to the revised Chronology.
2. During 1928/30, in connection with the rebuilding of Victoria Quay, some sheds were demolished and used to extend or to build new sheds. Once again study of plans and of the minutes of the meetings of Commissioners has shown that the Annual Reports are again misleading. This section of the Chronology was also revised.
3. A Tabular Summary of Erection, Demolition, Relocation and Alterations to Denotations of Transit Sheds has been drawn up for use as a simple reference. This has been inserted with the revised Chronology.
30 April 1991
David Hutchison
[contents on an unnumbered page]
PART I : HISTORY OF THE PORT OF FREMANTLE
Chap. 1 : 1827-1897 : EARLY PORT FACILITIES
1.1 : 1827-1829 - Choosing the site...4
1.2 : 1829-1837 - Open sea anchorage....... 9
1.3 : 1838-1891 - The sea jetties..........15
1.4 : 1892-1897 - Construction of the
Inner Harbour......... 46
Chap. 2 : 1897-1955 : INNER HARBOUR DEVELOPMENT. 67
2.1 : 1897-1918 - Consolidation and War... 68
2.2 : 1919-1945 - Depression and War........ 84
2.3 : 1946-1955 - Modernisation............ 119
Chap. 3 : 1956-1989 : OUTER HARBOUR AND RECENT INNER
HARBOUR DEVELOPMENT... 135 3.1 : 1956-1970 - Partial implementation of
the Tydeman Plan......... 140
3.2 : 1971-1989 - Recent developments.... 146
CONCLUSION....................................... 149
BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................... 152
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CHAPTER 1 : 1827 -1897
EARLY PORT FACILITIES 1.1 : Choosing the site
The decision to establish a colony at Swan River was due to the persuasiveness of Captain James Stirling. Stirling had proved himself an efficient leader during naval service in American waters after the outbreak of war with America in 1812. Following the end of the war with France in 1815, service officers were progressively retired. In 1818 Stirling, still young (at 27) and ambitious, was retired on half pay with the rank of Captain and must have chafed at lack of action for eight years. During that time, in 1823, he married Ellen Mangles. Ellen's father was a director of the East India Company and may have reinforced in Stirling some colonising ambition which his American experience may have engendered.
Early in 1826 Stirling, having been recalled to service, was given command of a new vessel, Success, and despatched to Sydney with a supply of currency. It is likely that he found the name of his vessel propitious, and he had obviously thought about the potential of the Swan River as a colony during his voyage to Sydney. He was instructed to proceed to Melville Island from Sydney to disestablish the garrison at that northern outpost. In Sydney he persuaded Governor Darling that mid-summer was not a suitable time to visit Melville Island and that, in the meantime, he should be sent to explore Swan River.
He was already convinced that a colony at Swan River would become a flourishing trading post. Even locally built vessels,
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necessarily small, could trade, in the favourable weather conditions which prevailed in the Indian Ocean, with Mauritius, India and the Malay Islands. Ships bound for China through the Eastern Passages, would not have to make a very large diversion to take goods to the new settlement, providing opportunity for more profit on outward voyages. In addition, the establishment of a naval and military station would
protect the colony and, more important, command India, the Malay Islands, and all the settlements in New Holland. (Appleyard and Manford 1979, p. 42)
Stirling also thought the climate at Swan River would be healthier than the more northern Shark Bay site, which had been suggested as a site for a colony on the western seaboard. Because of this agreeable climate, it would serve as a station where civil and military personnel of the East India Company could recuperate after service in the enervating climate of India. He also imagined that the colony could export grain.
He sailed from Sydney on 17 January 1827 to see whether the Swan River could provide a safe anchorage, and whether it had sufficient good soil and water to maintain a settlement and, perhaps, to produce an exportable surplus of grain. There can be no doubt that Stirling's report on his exploration of the area was coloured by his preconceptions. He saw the relatively fertile soil close to the river, but inadequate exploration beyond the river failed to reveal the predominantly sandy soils which were to prove so disappointing to the first settlers. Stirling can hardly be blamed for asssuming that the extensive coastal plain
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was fertile because it supported good forest. Even twentieth century politicians would make the same false assumption; it would be an important factor in the failure of the Group Settlements. However, Stirling was guilty of 'puffing' the potential of Swan River as a site for a colony as he pestered officials to establish it after his return to England. One of his maps showed fertile land extending from about the present site of Geraldton to well south of Perth, a wild exaggeration (White 1982).
He spent fifteen days, in March, at Swan River. During that time there were no storms, and Stirling believed that he had discovered a safe harbour in the 'Magnificent Sound' between Garden .Island and the mainland. Although he realised that the Sound was exposed to northwest gales, he thought that vessels could moor in it safely until fairer weather allowed them to enter the mouth of the river. He believed that the rocky bar which blocked entry to this safe haven could be removed 'without great difficulty or expense'. (Appleyard & Manford 1979, p. 42) Major Lockyer had been sent to King George Sound at the end of 1826 to investigate the possibility of establishing a convict settlement there. Stirling took Lockyer back to Sydney with him in April 1827. Both began working on reports to Governor Darling, on the two contending sites for a permanent settlement. There is no evidence that they discussed their reports. Lockyer was in favour of King George Sound: Stirling in favour of Swan River (Appleyard & Manford 1979, p. 42).
It seems strange that the naval officer, Stirling, was not
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more attracted to the magnificent harbour of King George Sound. However, there were arguments against establishing a new colony there. Lockyer had not been impressed with the agricultural potential of its hinterland, although this had not been explored much more than had the Swan River area. Both he and Stirling agreed that profitable whaling and sealing enterprises could be established. Lockyer's assessment of the Albany hinterland may have been more realistic than Stirling's assessment of the Swan River hinterland, but Darling seems to have been persuaded by the latter's enthusiastic report on that score. Swan River was also closer to India as a recuperating station for the East India Company. Stirling had also reported that Melville Water (then including Freshwater Bay) in the Swan would provide a commodious harbour when the mouth of the river was opened.
Also, in these days of modern navigation we have lost sight of the difficulty of navigation, between Sydney and King George's Sound, for small sailing craft against the prevailing westerlies, especially in winter. Indeed direct communication was closed from April to December. Darling had been forced, during that season, to send a supply ship to King George's Sound around the north of Australia. By that route Swan River was closer to Port Jackson. For all these reasons Darling preferred the Swan River.
Once Swan River was chosen as the site for the new colony it became essential to establish a sheltered harbour within or close to the estuary of the river. River transport from the mouth to the new capital, Perth, would have been much easier than overland cartage through the deep sand of the coastal plains, especially
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when there was no bridge across the river. The development of Perth as the political, administrative and commercial centre of the western third of the continent confirmed the need. Despite the difficulties of establishing a safe harbour at Fremantle, there has been little serious consideration of any other site for the state's principal port.
When the first settlers arrived in June 1929, in winter, north-westerly storms forced them to spend some time sheltering on Garden Island. The Sound was shown to be a very uncomfortable and unsafe anchorage in that season. The only safe access in all weathers was around the northern end of Rottnest Island. The Success and Parmelia Banks made navigation into the deeper and more sheltered waters hazardous. It would be nearly the end of the century before Western Australia, by then a state, would at last have a sheltered inner harbour in the estuary of the river. Up to that date ships had to berth off shore or, later, at sea jetties. Between the establishment of the colony in 1829 and the opening of the Inner Harbour there were a number of proposals for the construction of a harbour within or near the mouth of the river.
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1.2 : 1829-1837 : Open sea anchorage
Western Australia was unique among the Australian States in that it began as a colony for free settlers but later accepted convicts transported from Britain. It also began as the first colony in Australia founded exclusively for private settlement, and the only one to be
... founded on the basis of a land grant system, where grants were apportioned according to the value of assets and labour introduced by settlers (Statham 1981, p. 181).
The method of assessment of the value of the assets was not clearly defined and it was left to the judgement of local officials to make each assessment, and hence to determine the size of each land grant. This
... resulted In a liberal interpretation of the value of assets submitted for land entitlement and the alienation of more land than was warranted on the strict principle of assigning land in direct proportion to the productive assets and labour introduced for land improvements (Statham 1981, p. 183).
There was also a requirement that every part of a grant had to be improved before full title was granted. This led to dissipation of capital on work over the whole land grant to avoid penalties for failure to meet development requirements within a specific time. The grant system also encouraged settlers to bring indentured labour with them. Under such a system of indenture, the labourers received no wages until they had repaid to their
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masters the cost of transporting them and their families to the colony. Not only was labour immobilised, but the system prevented the early development of a domestic market for goods and services. Over-liberal assessment of assets and labour did not encourage settlers to bring capital with them. The colony therefore suffered chronically from a lack of capital and of cash in circulation.
At first the generous grants attracted settlers, so that by the end of 1830 the number of settlers was nearly 2,000, but in the next twenty years it increased to only 5,254. By comparison, South Australia, settled only in 1836, had achieved ten times that population by then (Statham 1981, p. 181).
The first vessels arrived at the Swan River in early June 1829. By the end of that year, twenty one vessels had arrived. There was an urgent need for a landing place for goods and services. The Challenger Passage, between Garden and Carnac Islands, had proved to be a hazardous entry into Cockburn Sound. Vessels coming around the north of Rottnest had to use Gage Roads as an anchorage, because the Parmelia and Success Banks made entry to the Sound very risky for sailing vessels, especially in strong winds. However, Gage Roads was exposed to north westerly winter gales and was unsafe. Several schemes were proposed for works to enable a safe entry into the River or a protected harbour at its mouth. These remained the only practical alternatives until the development of the Outer Harbour in the period 1955-1970.
In 1830 Stirling proposed the cutting of a passage from the
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sea into Rocky Bay (Fig. 1). John Morgan the Government Storekeeper proposed cutting a canal between South Bay and North Bay in the river. (White 1982). The colony's civil engineer H. W. Reveley proposed construction of a breakwater 914 m long at the mouth of the river. He estimated the total cost at £165 000, and the cost of the first half of it at £21 000. These sums were obviously out of reach. The total amount spent on public works between June 1829 and March 1831 was only £4 000. (Le Page 1986, p. 11)
The only structure that could be called a port facility up until 1837 was a stone pier on the east side of Anglesea Point, built by Reveley.
The Fremantle Whaling Company began operations from Bather's Beach in 1837, where they built a small jetty and a store, and set up try-works. There was talk of the jetty being shared by other vessels, but the water in the bay was shallow. The whaling companies also excavated a tunnel under Arthur Head (see Appendix 1) to provide more direct access to the town and to the river jetty at the north end of Cliff Street. The whaling companies failed by the end of 1838. The Harbour Master, Daniel Scott, leased the whaling jetty and warehouse. Anthony Curtis formed a new Fremantle Whaling Company which was dissolved in 1850. T. W. Mews, the colony's first shipbuilder, also had his premises at Bathers Beach.
In 1837 Lieutenant Jones proposed the creation of an artificial harbour by creating a breakwater, 914.4 m long, south of Arthur Head (Fig. 2). In 1839 the Surveyor General, J. S. Roe,
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proposed a similar scheme (Figs 3 and 4), estimated to cost £57. None of these early schemes was undertaken, principally the lack of resources in the colony.
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FIGURES 1 to 3 : EARLY SCHEMES OF PORT DEVELOPMENT 1830 - 1839 (Tydeman 1948, vol. 3, App. 14)
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FIGURE 4 : J. S. Roe proposal (1839) (Photocopied from Le Page 1986)
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1.3 : 1838-1891 : The sea jetties
In 1839 a jetty, the South Jetty, was built on the site of Reveley's stone pier in South Bay, using prison labour. It was 147.5 m long, including a head 28 m by 16.5 m. At the head the depth of the water was only 1.8 m at low water (Le Page 1986, p. 74). A photograph of the jetty survives (BL 711P). The site was near the present Fisherman's Co-operative building.
A Fremantle Harbour Board was appointed in 1849 under the chairmanship of J. S. Roe. Not long afterwards work started to blast a channel, known as Trigg's Passage, through the rock bar at the river's mouth (Fig. 5, P.W.D. 219). Local shipping men raised objections to opening a passage into the river from fear that ships would sail through to Perth and by-pass Fremantle. Work was abandoned because of lack of plant (Tydeman 1948, p. 50). J
The colony progressed slowly until lfjso, however,
...by the time the first convicts arrived, considerable economic progress had been made. Wool, timber and sandalwood, whale products and livestock were being exported to England and elsewhere (Statham 1981, p.181).
The development of this export trade increased the need for an all-weather port, but the colony had not had the capital, free labour pool, or physical resources for large public works in this period, even though most of the proposals for harbour development were probably feasible technically.
The arrival of the Imperial Convict Establishment in 1850 led to an injection of capital and new skills as well as to the provision of a pool of labour, available without cost for public works. Convict
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transportation ceased in 1868, although convicts remained to complete their sentences until late in the century. The colony continued to develop slowly but steadily until the end of the 1880s. In 1870 it took its first step towards a democratic government with the granting of Representative Government. Twenty years later Responsible Government was granted, just ten years before the new State entered into the Federation of the Australian Commonwealth. Those ten years, the first eight in particular, saw the economy transformed by a series of rich gold finds (Appleyard 1981, p. 212). This sudden access of wealth was to provide, at last, the capital for major public works; the consequent explosion of population (from 43 814 in 1888 to over 150 000 by 1897) was to increase the need and to provide the political impetus to undertake those works.
It was intended to utilise the labour of the convicts, and the skills ot the accompanying unit of the Royal Engineers, on public work The Comptroller-General of the Convict Establishment, Capt. E.Y.W. Henderson, and Surveyor General J. S. Roe, separately proposed schemes in 1855 which were similar to the 1837 scheme of Lieut. Jones. In the following year, Mr Phelps proposed the first scheme for using the river estuary, by excavation and reclamation to form a waterway 91.4 m wide (Fig. 6, PWD 892).
In 1851 navigation in the approaches was made safer by the completion of the first light house a little to the south west of the Round House. However, there appear to have been no more proposals for the harbour until the end of the next decade.
Late in 1853 construction of a river jetty in North Bay, north of the end of Cliff Street, commenced (Fig. 12 and BL 16951P). It should
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FIGURES 5 to 7 : EARLY SCHEMES OF PORT DEVELOPMENT 1849 - 1870 (Tydeman 1948, vol. 3, App. 14)
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be remembered that Fremantle was also a river port as it has continued to be although now principally for pleasure craft and passenger ferries. Perth and Guildford were also river ports. The river trade would continue to flourish until the construction of railways, roads and bridges.
In 1856 William Phelps proposed that the river estuary be utilised by confining the river to a canal 91.4 m wide, with reclamation on either side of it (Tydeman 1948, p. 48; Fig. 6, PWD 892).
Upriver construction of the first bridge, across the river to North Fremantle, now placed limits on possible upstream extension of the harbour. Construction of the bridge, using convict labour, began in 1862 and the bridge was opened in November 1866. It included a high arched central section to allow the passage of lighters under sail. The structure included so many timber members it became known as 'The Bridge of Sticks', and it is alleged that this was corrupted to 'The Bridge of Styx'. This bridge was to survive, after considerable modification, into the 1930s. (BL RN91)
There was an exceptionally rough winter in 1867. Many ships were wrecked. The severe winter must have regalvanised efforts to design a safe harbour. Wallace Bickley , a Fremantle merchant and friend and associate of Lionel Samson (Brown 1989, p. 21), designed an external harbour with a breakwater extending 731.5 m from Rous Head. His plan was published in the Herald in September, 1868 (Fig. 8).
With the cessation of convict transportation in that year, the Imperial Convict Establishment was wound down. Economic and demographic growth declined: the decline was partly due to a severe drought during 1869-70.
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FIGURE 8 : Walter Bickley's proposal (The Herald, 12 September 1868)
KEY: 1, Lighthouse; 2, Whalers’ tunnel; 3, Railway; 4, Additional quays and jetty (if needed); 5, jetty - open piles; 6-7, railway from south jetty to river jetty; 8, Commissariat; 9, Present goods platform; 10, Addition to present jetty; 11, Present jetty; 12-13, open piled jetty; 14, Harbour entrance; 15-16, Breakwater.
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Among the reasons for modest gains in net migration and slow economic growth were reduction of imperial expenditure following cessation of transportation, the stigma the colony had acquired (especially in eastern colonies) when it introduced convicts, and the dearth of capital (indigenous and imported) necessary to establish and/or expand new industries. (Appleyard 1981, p. 216)
In 1870, Edward Troode proposed a floating breakwater to protect a jetty built out from Arthur Head. (Fig. 7, P.W.D. 11219)
Despite all the debate and the various proposals by that year Fremantle was served by a "harbour" that was no more than "a few poles stuck out in the Indian Ocean". (Brown 1989, p. 17.) The Governor, in danger of being overwhelmed by these various schemes, engaged a consulting engineer, W. T. Doyne, to report on proposed harbour works, referring five points to him, which can be summarised as follows:
1. The various attempts which had hitherto been made to open the bar of the river.
2. The desirability, or otherwise, of continuing the operations hitherto undertaken, either in whole or in part.
3. The various propositions for the construction of moles or harbours outside the river, and for connecting the traffic between Fremantle and Perth with agricultural districts and the jarrah forests, making Fremantle the main port.
4. The advisability, or otherwise, of erecting a jetty in the bay south of Cockburn Sound, and connecting the same by railway with Fremantle, Perth and the jarrah forests of the
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Darling Range.
5. The system of railways most suited to the above.
This was the first attempt to make a coherent assessment of all the earlier proposals and, more importantly, to integrate the harbour with a railway system. There is also the clear statement that Fremantle was being considered as the main port for the colony.
Doyne, reporting on 28 February 1970, said that he had been faced immediately with
...the greatest difficulty (an engineer) has to contend with, namely the absence of natural hydraulic forces to aid him in removing the heavy deposits which accumulate in the bed, and at the mouth of sluggish rivers like the Swan. (Doyne, 1870) This 'sluggishness' was due to the relatively small tidal range and to the 'very little force of current in the river' except for about two months of the year. He found Phelps' proposal to confine the flow of water to a narrow channel 'very questionable as regards the power to keep.such a channel open to a depth much below low water'. He also thought that the extension of a 'walled-in channel' into deep water would result in 'removing the evil a little further out'. (The problem of the 'sluggishness' of the river and of littoral sand drift would become recurring themes in harbour proposals). Doyne believed that north west gales would cause channels to silt up constantly, so reqiring frequent dredging.
A careful review of all these circumstances leads me to recommend strongly that all attempts to control the course of the river be at once abandoned.
He also commented on a current proposal to deepen and widen Trigg's
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Passage which had been cut under Rous Head, to allow for the passage of vessels drawing 3.66 in to 4.88 m .
In the first place, such vessels could not cross the outside shoals to reach this channel, and in the second, if inside, they could not go up the river, or even reach the jetty within the Bar. Any expenditure for such purposes would therefore be fruitless...
The proposed cut through to Rocky Bay he dismissed summarily
I have thought that this point has been sufficiently disposed of by Colonel Henderson to require no further remarks by me.
Doyne then turned his attention to the third point of his brief, the various proposals to create a harbour, protected by moles projecting from Arthur Head into Gage Roads. In particular he considered the proposals by Henderson and Roe.
(Henderson's proposal) is a curved mole, to be constructed of timber framing, filled in with limestone rubble, projected into 20 feet (6.1 m) of water, and enclosing about 38 acres (15.38 ha) of that depth.
The author estimates tht with such a mole, 380 yards (347.47 m) in length, accommodation would be provided for 16 vessels to load and unload in all weathers, at a cost of about £14 000.
There was, of course, no charge for labour as it was assumed that the work would be done by convict labour.
The second proposal is also a curved mole of limestone rubble, faced with large blocks of granite...of a total length of 2 000 yards (1828.8 m)...
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The Roe scheme allowed for about 100 acres (40.45 ha) of water to a depth of 6.4 m to 7.32 m, and was capable of sheltering 12 large ships in all weathers. The estimated cost was £140 000. The schemes were 'generally similar...differing mainly in their proportions'.
I see objections to both, which in my opinion, would prove fatal to their efficacy, and render them litle better than fair weather harbours.
Doyle believed that heavy seas from the north west would break clear over the moles, and this could only be prevented by increasing the height of the moles and building massive parapets on them. Secondly, he thought that heavy rollers from the west and northwest would break around the end of the mole, causing sufficient swell to at least damage vessels within. To prevent this would require extension of the mole into deeper water, and the construction of a south mole, projecting from the shore, to provide a narrow entrance. These measures would provide a 'safe and commodious harbour', but at enormous cost.
Doyle assessed the Bickley plan (Fig. 8) to construct a 'harbour dock' off Arthur Head, with two moles to enclose 12.1 ha to 16.2 ha of water to a depth of 4.57 m to 4.88 m which would be dredged to 6.1 m. The cost was estimated to be £65 000.
The mouth of this dock opens to the south-east, with an entrance of 200 ft (60.96 m) wide. In fresh weather, from any point, it would be difficult to enter without steam power, and even with larger power it would be dangerous.
This may be the first reference to steam power in the assessment of the harbour proposals. Then Doyle expressed his concern about sand
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drift.
In my opinion, one very serious, I think fatal objection, common to all these plans, namely the tendency to form sand bars across their mouths, and shoals inside them.
Colonel Henderson, in a report dated 12th February, 1856, contends this conclusion. He does not discuss the question of currents to which I have called attention, nor do I find anywhere throughout the voluminous correspondence on this subject, which has extended over fifteen years, any prominent allusion to it.
In support of his opinion he relies upon the single fact that South Bay, which is similarly situated to his proposed Mole Harbour, had not sanded up during the 25 years after the foundation of the Colony.
These cases are not quite parallel.. .as it is (the jetty) has proved a very important influence since Colonel Henderson's observations were taken. The north and east shores have advanced considerably, and boats now lie high and dry 50 to 100 feet (15.24 m to 30.48 m) outside the line within which they were formerly anchored afloat.
Doyle concluded that
The idea of concentrating the principal traffic of the Colony at Fremantle must be abandoned in view of the numerous natural difficulties to be contended with, and the consequent great cost and uncertainty of works undertaken for such a purpose.
These assessments of Doyne have been quoted at some length because, in essence, they were arguments that were to confront C. Y. O'Connor
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again at the end of the century. Doyne recommended the selection of
some suitable place in the neighbourhood of Fremantle, where natural protection is afforded to the ships...
To service the timber trade he proposed a jetty in Mangles' Bay, where it would be sheltered by Garden Island and the Parmelia Bank. Doyne recommended the construction of a railway to serve the new jetty, thus reducing the difficulties of transportation from the jarrah forests.
The first jetty at Rockingham was completed in December 1872, and it was connected by rail with the timber mills of Jarrahdale. During the 1880s Rockingham was the chief timber port of the colony; it conceded that title to Hamelin Bay in 1889. Well over 500 vessels loaded at Rockingham in the period 1873-1908. A second jetty was constructed in 1882. The opening of the Inner Harbour at Fremantle, and the completion of the Perth-Bunbury railway in 1893, led to the rapid decline of Rockingham as a port. Bunbury became the chief timber port, and the last vessel called at Rockingham in 1908 (Fall 1972). There would be no further attempt to develop port facilities in Cockburn Sound, apart from the abortive Henderson Naval Base during World War I, until 1955.
The publication of the Doyne report came at the time of important political and administrative developments. The cessation of convict transportation in 1868 opened the way to the government becoming 'fully representative'. The new Legislative Council, elected in 1870, was composed of twelve members elected by property-holders and three appointed by the Governor, together with the colony's three principal officials - the Colonial Secretary, the Surveyor-General and the
26
FIGURE 9 : The sea jetties (Le Page 1986)
27
Attorney-General. This important step towards responsible government must have encouraged the colonists to take stock and to give more consideration to a systematic development of facilities.
While schemes were being proposed for a harbour there was need to extend the existing South Jetty, possibly due to the silting up referred to by Doyne. The government voted funds to extend the existing South Jetty, but changed its mind and called tenders for the
construction of a new jetty, running south-west from Anglesea Point originating a little west of the South Jetty (Fig. /16). The new jetty would become known as the Long Jetty. The tender of the timb'er firm of Mason, Bird and Co. was accepted on 8 October 1872. The new jetty (Fig. 9), the first major public work commissioned by the new ’representative government', was 229.6 m long and the depth of water at its end was 3.66 m. However, it achieved little more than the original proposal to extend the South Jetty. Ships drawing more than 3.2 m still had to anchor in Gage Roads and unload into lighters (Le Page 1986, p. 108).
By that date the colony had an extensive overseas and intercolonial trade. The roads constructed by the convicts had improved traffic between Fremantle and the country districts. Although the colony was still importing grain from other Australian colonies, it was already exporting wool and timber (especially jarrah railway
sleepers), the minerals copper and lead, horses, and special commodities such as sandalwood and pearl shell. About one hundred ships visited Fremantle each year. There must have been an increased sense of urgency to adopt a plan for a safe harbour and to have it constructed.
28
In 1872 Mr G. Randell was the first to propose a north mole, projecting from Rous Head towards the south-west, coupled with reclamation on the south side of the river estuary for wharfage (Fig. 10, P.W.D. 11219). Randell does not appear to have been deterred by Doyne's assessment of the likelihood of silting up. Nor does Mr A. J. Johnson who, in the following year proposed a harbour in the river, the mouth of which was to be protected by two breakwaters, the channel to be 200 feet (60.96 m) wide and 25 feet (7.62 m) deep (Tydeman 1948, p. 51)
This scheme is broadly similar, at least in overall coneception, to the eventual O'Connor plan.
These proposals were among those discussed by the Legislative Council during 1872. Governor Weld appointed the Surveyor General, Malcolm Fraser to preside over a Harbour Improvement Board to obtain reliable information. The Board reported on 11 June 1873, recommending that the advice of 'some eminent engineer' be obtained (Le Page 1986, p. 134).
On the 8 July 1873 the Legislative Council appointed a Select Committee to consider the report of the Harbour Committee Wallace -Bickley was appointed chairman. On Johnson's scheme the Committee commented that it placed Perth advantageously as regards river communication with shipping, provided the work was an engineering possibility and provided no subsequent maintenance expenses would be incurred (Ref. Sketch P.W.D. 11219). (Tydeman, 1948, p. 51)
The Committee agreed with the recommendation to obtain expert
29
advice but suggested that, instead of seeking an overseas expert, experienced engineers in the service of South Australia and Victoria should be invited. They wanted expert advice particularly on the problem of siltage.
So the Legislative Council engaged three Victorian engineers, Mr Higginbotham, Engineer in Charge of Railways, Mr Gordon, Chief Engineer of Water Supply, and Mr Wardell, Inspector General of Public Works, to report on the provision of a harbour. These engineers did not visit the site but recommended that the harbour be sited in Cockburn Sound. A committee appointed to review their report, however, unanimously recommended a site in Gage Roads, commenting that
Only as an ultimate resource would it be advisable to improve the entrance into Cockburn Sound' (Tydeman 1948, p. 51)
It does not appear that the jetty at Rockingham was seen to be more than a special provision for timber export. The legislators still appeared to be fairly fixed in their view that the principal port should be at Fremantle.
Another Select Committee, appointed on 2 July 1874, investigated a scheme by Bickley. He proposed a breakwater from Rous Head, part of the capital cost to be reimbursed by sale of reclaimed land. (It might be noted here, that the cost of the recently completed small boat harbour on the north side of the harbour will be partly offset by sale or lease of reclaimed land.) The committee reported on 16 July that it was
very perturbed about siltage and littoral sand drift inside and outside the harbour, dependent on whether the S.W. breakwater started from Rous or Arthur Head (Tydeman 1948, p. 51).
30
Bickley' s scheme was the last to be costed assuming the employment of convict labour.
The same committee did not support Mr Nicolay's scheme for a canal between Rocky Bay and the sea. This was a more detailed version of Stirling's original proposal. Nicolay proposed a floating bridge across the canal to carry the Perth-Fremantle road; sluice gates to control the river level; and the erection of weirs at Perth and at the mouth of the Canning River to maintain water levels for summer navigation (Le Page 1986, p. 135).
The committee, having disposed of 'the only fresh plan that was placed before them',
considered that it would tend to bring their labour to some practical solution if they determined to concentrate their attention to some particular place and some particular plan. (V & _P 1874, p. 151)
They came to the unanimous conclusion
that the site of any Harbor Works to be constructed should be in Gage's Roads; that the most suitable plan would be a Breakwater constructed of jarrah piles in the first place, but in such a manner that it might be hereafter filled in with stone...(V & P 1874, p.151)
The breakwater was to run westerly from Rous Head for 640 m and then curve south-westerly and south to Beagle Rock; it would be 1,829 m long in total.
In 1874 some local merchants (J. and W. Bateman, Wanliss, Connor and McKay) asked the Legislative Council for permission to instal a
31
floating dock, but did not submit any definite proposal (Tydeman 1948, p. 51).
Later in that year, one of the Victorian panel, Wardell, asked if he could inspect sites and report. He reported in January 1875. He agreed that a 'projection1 from either Rous or Arthur Heads
would arrest the littoral sand drift and shoal the anchorage; that removing the bar and opening the river was a waste of money; similarly with the channel to Rocky Bay...(Tydeman 1948, p. 51)
He also concluded
That any money spent in opening a larger channel by blasting the rock bar or otherwise would be thrown away, for a sandbar would inevitably follow...it is hopeless to attempt any permanent improvement at the river mouth (Le Page 1986, p. 135).
He proposed the construction of an island breakwater, using concrete blocks, on the west side of Gage Roads.
Wardell also rejected a second proposal by Nicolay for a breakwater west of Gage Roads, detached from the mainland, and made of concrete blocks weighing 15.2 to 20.3 tonne, deposited at random from barges or lighters (Le Page 1986, p. 135).
A civil engineer, T. H. J. Browne's, proposal, in 1875, was novel in that it included a cut through the north bank to produce a basin protected by two breakwaters. (Figs 11, 13 and 14). It was estimated to cost £500 000. The scheme was rejected because of bad foundations on the site and because it was too costly (Tydeman 1948, p. 51; Le Page 1986, p. 135).
32
Other Fremantle merchants, including William Moore, W. E. Marmion and W. S. Pearse, supported Brown's proposal at a public meeting. They, with Browne, led a deputation to the government. (Brown 1989, pp 21-22)
Some other Fremantle merchants were opposed to location of the harbour on the north side, but Browne, in a letter to the Herald of 16 October 1875, wrote
I have heard it asserted that harbour works on the north side of the river must be detrimental to the prosperity of Fremantle on the south side of the river but I never could hear a reason why, and I have never been able to discover one myself.
Allthough a decision on the harbour continued to be deferred, navigation had been improved by the construction of a second light house on Arthur Head, north of the first. It was completed in 1876. The first light house was cut down and used as a flag store until about 1904. Light House Keeper's Quarters were also erected on ArthurHead.
The continual deferral of harbour construction was probably due to
the concentration of loan funds, during the 1880s, on the construction of roads and railways. It was fortuitous that these elements of the infrastructure were in hand before the gold rushes. However, yet more harbour proposals must have confounded the Legislative Council even, further; it again resorted to the appointment of a Select Committee - on 2 December 1876 - to examine proposals. This Committee considered submissions from Browne and Wallace Bickley, and recommended a timber breakwater (Fig. 12) almost identical to Henderson's 1855 proposal.
33
EARLY SCHEMES OF PORT DEVELOPMENT 1872 - 1875 (Tydeman 1948, vol. 3, App. 14)
34
FIGURE 13: T. H. J. Browne's schememe (1875) (Le Page 1986)
35
FIGURE 14 : Perspective sketch of T. H. J. Browne's schememe (1875) (Le Page 1986)
36
However, the largest class of ships at that time could not have been accommodated.
The government must have been thoroughly confused by then. Within three years there had been reports from the Harbour Improvement Board, three separate select committees, the Victorian panel, and from Wardell individually, together with comments on these reports. They decided that the Eastern Railway should have top priority as funds for harbour works were inadequate (Le Page 1986, pp 136-7).
However they also decided to invite the eminent English marine engineer, Sir John Coode, to report. He did not visit the site, but requested detailed information 'to cover the entire range of possible sites'. The Director of Works, James Thomas, expressed his opinion that the interests of the colony would be better served by constructing a railway to 'the splendid natural harbour at King George's Sound'. He also proposed that, if the government decided to proceed with a harbour, the colony should offer to take the whole of the long-sentenced prison population of the other Colonies (who, I have no doubt would be glad to get rid of them) at a fixed annual sum per head for their care and keep, and establish an extensive Convict Establishment at Fremantle (Le Page 1986, p. 138).
Thomas must have been politically naive to think that this proposal, coming only nine years after the cessation of convict transportation to the colony, would be acceptable to the government or to the community. It certainly was not adopted.
Coode forwarded his report in November 1877. He asserted that the lack of tidal flushing would cause the river mouth to silt up; and
37
that solid projections from the shore would also silt up because of the littoral sand drift. He proposed two alternative schemes: A to the north of the river mouth, and B to the south (Figs 15 and 16). The former was the more ambitions and consisted of an open timber viaduct 792.5 m long north-west of Rous Head to Eleanor Rocks where the water was 8.84 m deep. From that point four concrete breakwaters, built on a rubble base, were to form the four sides of an octagon, with the terminal point almost due west of Rous Head. The open viaduct was to prevent silting up, which he believed would result if a solid breakwater was connected to the shore. This scheme would have provided 1250 m of berthing in a depth of 8.84 m to 10,06 m. This was to be connected to the future rail system and Coode stressed the need to decide whether that railway would be sited north or south of the river (Tauman 1975, p,60). The estimated cost was £638 000.
The lesser scheme also had an open timber viaduct, 548.6 m long, south-west from Arthur Head towards Beagle Rocks where the water depth was 6.1 m. Beyond it, on the same line, there would be 213.4 m of solid masonry surmounted by a high parapet to serve as both quay and breakwater. There was an additional 243.8 m of breakwater, of timber and rubble, running south from the end of the first breakwater. The water depth at the end of this breakwater would have been 8.23 m. There would have been a total of 457.2 m of wharfage, about a third of that available in the greater scheme, at a proportionately lower cost of £242 000 (Tauman 1975, p. 61).
The estimated cost of each scheme was well in excess of the upper limit of £100 000 imposed by the government.
It should be noted that three of Coode's conclusions were
38
FIGURE 15 : Sir John Coode's two proposals (1877) (Le Page 1986)
39
EARLY SCHEMES OF PORT DEVELOPMENT 1877 - 1887 (Tydeman 1948, vol. 3, App. 15)
40
eventually rejected:
1. That low tidal variation would be inadequate to scour the mouth of the river.
2. That the Long Jetty should not be extended any further because of exposure to wind and swell.
3. That the proposed rail bridge should be upstream, and not downstream as intended, of the existing road bridge, to allow for future expansion of the inner harbour upstream.
He was to be proven wrong in his first conclusion; there has not been excessive silting up of the present Inner Harbour. In fact the small tidal range and lack of strong current are advantages for the Inner Harbour. A large tidal movement would have made docking difficult and may have required wet docks; strong currents would have made it difficult to manoeuvre ships within the harbour basin (Tull 1985, p.121).
He was right, as will be shown, in his second and third conclusions, although the latter conflicted with his belief that the river mouth was not suitable for a harbour.
The Legislative Council continued to discuss harbour development from time to time. This led, eventually, to the government issuing another invitation to Coode who entered into an agreement to visit the Colony and to report further. He was not able to make his visit until July 1885, staying for five weeks.
In the meantime, during 1879-1881, the Fremantle-Guildford railway was under construction, with its terminal at the river end of Cliff Street on the south side of the river, thereby pre-empting one of the decisions that Coode believed would help to determine the site
41
of the harbour. Some reclamation of the river was required to accommodate the line. In 1886 railway maintenance and repair workshops were constructed at the end of Bay Street.
From time to time sections of the Fremantle community continued to agitate for a decision on the siting of the harbour (Brown 1989). In May 1883 the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce was revived, with William Moore as President, largely to campaign on this matter. However, the merchants of Fremantle were not of one mind.
Tension existed particularly because of the opposing interests of the Fremantle representatives of the inter-colonial coastal shipping companies (Brown 1989, p.27)
If overseas liners began to use Fremantle as their principal port of call, in place of Albany, they would be strong competition for the Adelaide-Fremantle service provided by the inter-colonial liners.
In August 1884 the 'Mayor, Councillors and Burgesses of the Corporation and District of Fremantle' petitioned the Governor (Petition 1884). The petitioners preferred Coode's Scheme 'A'. However,
... since these proposals were made a railway line has been constructed to the Eastern Districts having a terminus at Fremantle; and that the adodption of the Design A would not only detract from the value of a portion of the line, but would necessitate the construction of a branch line connecting the sea works with the railway. And, moreover, Your Petitioners are of opinion that the financial position of the Colony is not sufficiently strong to warrant the expenditure of so large a sum on a particular work of such magnitude.
They, therefore, urged adoption of Scheme B. The merchants were
42
also concerned that the other Scheme would have 'shifted the main harbour activities away from the already well-established town on the south side of the river' (Ewers 1971, p.93).
Coode visited the colony in 1885 in mid winter and there occurred some of the most severe storms for several years, which waB probably of some benefit to him in assessing the problems of an exposed anchorage in Gage Roads. He inspected all the potential harbour sites: Gage Roads, Owens Anchorage, Cockburn Sound and Rocky Bay. He was also able to assess local construction materials. He was, in addition, asked to report on a proposal for a weir across the river above the Causeway, for the maintenance of navigable water levels in summer. He rejected that.
His new report did not differ materially from his 1877 report. He rejected the cutting of a canal into Rocky Bay, again because of his fear of siltage. He also believed that the cost of making and maintaining safe approaches to Cockburn Sound would be too costly. Bores, requested by him, showed that the Success and Parmelia Banks were essentially sand. He believed that they were formed by the predominantly southward drdift of sand in Gage Roads (Le Page 1986, p. 183). He maintained the view that there would be insufficient scour to keep open a cut through the bar at the mouth of the river. His inspections and the new data available to him confirmed him in his 1877 view
that the conditions are so adverse that it is quite impracticable to treat the existing entrance to the Swan River with a view to the formation and maintenance of a deep-water approach from the sea with any degree of success, and that any
43
operation of this character, except to a limited extent, to which I shall hereafter refer, would be attended with failure and disappointment (Le Page 1986, p. 183).
He thought it possible to make a channel through the bar, but not one large enough to accommodate, in all weathers, the larger P. & O. and Orient Line steamers. On this point also he would prove to be wrong.
Despite this plethora of proposals, committees and reports, Fremantle still had only its two sea jetties and the river jetty by 1880 (Fig. 11). Completion, in 1881, of the railway from Guildford to Fremantle provided incentive to extend the Long Jetty. The Acting Commissioner of Railways proposed to the Colonial Secretary on the rather inauspicious date of 1 April 1882 that the railway be run out on to the jetty. A contract was let in 1886 to extend the head of the jety 103.6 m in a westerly direction, and to widen the original section. The jetty was still inadequate.
Another contract to extend it further was let in 1888 to R. O. Law. Law had experience working with his father on the second jetty at Rockingham, but he was under twenty one and did not reveal this, to the embarrassment of the government when it became known. However, Law was allowed to resign the contract.
The berths were exposed to winter weather, as is illustrated by an extract from an often quoted letter written by Captain D. B. Shaw, commander of the sailing vessel Saranac, in October-November 1892 to his New York principals:
It is a terrible place. No place to put a vessel. No shelter whatever. All the ships have to lay and discharge at the wharf
44
or pay lighterage... It is blowing a gale from the SW...and takes all our time to hold her... She had done considerable damage to herself...It is certainly the worst place I or anyone else ever saw. No place to send a ship of this size ... Any man who would come or send a ship a second time is a damned ass ... I never was so sick of a place in my life, and may the curse of Christ rest on Fremantle and every son-of-a-bitch in ... God dam [sic] them all (Ewers 1971, p. 244)
When this jetty fell into disuse, after the opening of the Inner Harbour, a private concern erected a hall at end for concerts and other entertainments. It was not patronised as much as had been hoped.
The hall was moved to South Beach, where it became known as the the Hydrodrome. It remained there until rendered unsafe by age and wind damage; its top storey was removed and it was used subsequently as a bathing shed.
In 1921, Law, who had carried out the 1888 extensions, obtained the contract to demolish the jetty. The few remaining stumps of the piles of the jetty were retained in situ, following a public outcry in 1984 when the breakwater for the new Challenger Harbour, under construction or the America's Cup Challenge, was re-sited to avoid them.
Little else remains of the structures of this period of the history of the harbour. Archaeologists have located the remains of the tryworks, the jetty and the sea wall, at the whaling station site at Bathers Beach. Land reclamation and the more recent construction of Challenger Harbour have eliminated any visible signs of the original South Bay shoreline and the earlier jetties. The river jetty was also
45
buried when land was reclaimed for the construction of Victoria Quay. It is to be hoped that the community will try to conserve the historic features of the Inner Harbour.
Towards the end of this period
the importance of Fremantle declined, in spite of the gold rush. Traffic was attracted to Albany, which offerred a deep water harbour and was closer (sic) to the goldfields (Wagner 1988, p. 33)
In fact, of course, those going to the goldfields were more likely to have overlanded through York. The trip to the goldfields was longer from Albany than from York, but may have been quicker, especially for those (the majority) coming from the eastern states. The land journey to York would have been quicker than the sea voyage to Fremantle.
In 1890, with the granting of Responsible Government, the colony became a state; and in doing so gained the right to raise loans for its own works. In June 1891 Charles Yelverton O'Connor, the Irish engineer with extensive experience in New Zealand, arrived in the state. These were essential factors in finally determining the location and the form of the State's principal port.
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1.4 : 1892-1897 : Construction of the Inner Harbour
The 1890s was a watershed in Western Australia's economic history. Discovery of large deposits of alluvial (and then reef) gold in the Yilgarn district attracted thousands of diggers from other colonies and overseas (many of them were later followed by their families), and also large investment in mining and related ventures, which made a dramatic impact on the slow-growing colony. The dislocations caused by the magnitude and rapidity of these events were to a large extent softened by the coincidence of responsible government being granted in the colony in 1890, thus placing it in a stronger position to make its own decisions concerning appropriate allocation of resources. Also, the first premier, John Forrest, was a political leader equal to the task who, within two years of his election, appointed C. Y. O'Connor as engineer-in-chief of a large government works programme. In this trilogy of circumstances - discovery of gold, responsible government and political leadership - lies the key to understanding the nature of economic change in the decade prior to federation (Appleyard 1981, pp 218-219).
It should be noted that the public works carried out during the convict period (especially roads and bridges), the capital works (on railways and telegraph lines in particular) during the 1880s, and the twenty years experience of representative government, all contributed to the ability of the state to absorb the impact of the rapid population growth of the nineties.
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It may be said that there was a 'tetralogy of circumstances', rather than the 'trilogy' listed by Appleyard; the appointment of O'Connor, to which he refers, should be included. O'Connor's brilliance and diligence brought about the simultaneous creation of a public works department, the design and construction of the Inner Harbour, the extension of railways and roads, the design and construction of major water supply schemes, and other considerable public works.
The gold rushes, of course, not only caused a rapid increase in population with the concomitant increased demand for public works and services; they also brought the wealth and, with the wealth, the increasing community and political confidence to undertake large public works. Moreover, the state government could now raise loans on its own account to finance public works.
An excellent biography of O'Connor is available (Tauman 1975). Much of the following summary account of his work on the Inner Harbour is a paraphrase of the relevant sections of that work, to which anyone wishing a more detailed account of the politics of the period may refer.
O'Connor arrived in Western Australia, after substantial experience in New Zealand as a civil engineer (with work on harbours in particular), in mid June and was immediately plunged into a very taxing programme. Forrest had told him that he would be working on 'railways, harbours, everything' (Tauman 1975, p. 53)
In addition to this very taxing (indeed over-taxing to the extent that it contributed to his tragic suicide) programme of design and
48
supervision, he had to create a public works department, and assemble staff - professional engineers first and then the skilled labour for construction. He was confronted by
a mass of earlier suggestions and designs, but, being what he was - a man of strong personality as well as a wonderfully able and far-seeing engineer - he struck out on a broad principle of providing a harbour which, while being entirely adequate for the day in which he was working, could by steady improvement be made to meet all contingencies of the sea transport trade for many years, and could be extended with eased as the demand arose. (Stevens 1929)
Forrest was strongly committed to establishing the colony's principal harbour at Fremantle, although postal authorities in other colonies were opposed at first to making it the principal port of call for mail steamers. They argued that the call at Fremantle, instead of Albany, would delay delivery of mails to them by some twelve hours. Forrest eventually overcame that opposition.
The Government still had before it all the various proposals which fell essentially into outer or inner harbour proposals: the outer harbour including sites near the river mouth, at Owen's Anchorage, or deeper into Cockburn Sound; the inner including Rocky Bay and the river mouth. Although O'Connor was due to arrive in the colony in 1891, in that year Forrest again sought advice from Coode, but this time on the practicability and cost of opening and maintaining a passage through Success Bank into Owens Anchorage. As soon as O'Connor arrived, in June, he began to study Coode's plans and to assemble more
49
data. Forrest also urged him to determine what could be done at Owens Anchorage within a budget of 1150,000. O'Connor said that the proposal would require an additional £50,000 for the purchase of dredges, and to build a railway to connect the proposed harbour with the existing rail link with Perth and beyond (Tauman 1975, p. 64).
O'Connor soon came to the conclusion that Coode's proposals were based on inadequate data, especially data on littoral sand movement, the seriousness of which he thought Coode had over-emphasized. He concluded that the sand movement was insufficient to cause concern.
There was probably an element of Australian 'cultural cringe' in the way in which Forrest, as well as other politicians, would not accept O'Connor's arguments at first. He had yet to demonstrate his abilities to them; and Coode had a very substantial and, moreover, overseas reputation. However the Minister of Works, H. W. Venn, quickly became a supporter of O'Connor and an energetic advocate for his proposals.
On 11 September 1891, Forrest wrote to Venn, stating that he would like to have a record of O'Connor's opinion. Before he received this he announced his own decision to O'Connor, that either the Rocky Bay or river mouth schemes would be too costly and would take too long to construct; he had decided to stand firm on his commitment to Owens Anchorage. Nonetheless, Venn asked O'Connor to provide an approximate estimate for construction of a harbour at the river mouth.
In January of the following year, Forrest maintained his stand and moved in Parliament for approval of work at Owens Anchorage. Forrest was defeated in the Lower House. In the same month a Joint Select
50
Committee of Both Houses was set up to report on the matter. O'Connor was questioned closely, even antagonistically by Marmion, the Member for Fremantle and a Coode supporter. Marmion had represented Fremantle since 1870; but there was some conflict between his role as a member for Fremantle and his business interests in shipping (Brown 1989, p.224). O'Connor stuck to his guns. He said that he was prepared for independent engineering evaluation of his plans, provided they were presented intoto. He had proposed two schemes: the lesser to cost £560,000 and to take 5 years; the greater to cost £800,000 and to take 8 years. The greater scheme would allow for the largest vessels likely to be built within the next generation.
He also warned against false economy, or carrying out works piecemeal; construction of all elements were interdependent, for example rock raised by dredging could be used in mole construction.
O'Connor's confidence and well-argued case, won over the Joint Committee.
O'Connor's inner harbour scheme revealed his striking independence of mind. The plan showed a harmonious simplicity. Happily he combined a capacity for brilliant planning with an appreciation of the practical issues involved.
It was his genius for seeing to the heart of a problem, his capacity for concentrating on the problem, for examining evidence and devising a seemly solution won him the support of his co-workers and many of the politicians.
On 15 February 1892, the Joint Committee reported in favour of the adoption of O'Connor's scheme and stressed the need to begin the work
51
as soon as possible. Forrest conceded, possibly because he felt that he had some obligation to back his own appointee (Brown 1989, p.24). However, Forrest, when he moved in the House, on 9 March for the adoption of the O'Connor plan, generously admitted that
he was under an erroneous impression as to the cost of the work necessary to construct a breakwater at Fremantle (Stevens 1929).
and expressed his pleasure at the outcome, warmly congratulating the country upon having
such an authority as their Engineer-in-Chief, and he said that if the Engineer-in-Chief could carry out the works he had reported upon and which he had suggested, for the amounts that he had dgiven in his estimate, quite a new era was open to us in the construction of harbour works (Stevens 1929).
During the debate in the Upper House, J. A. Wright, said
I feel perfectly certain this work can be carried out, and that it will prove of the greatest advantage to the commercial interests of Fremantle. There will be a very large amount of land reclaimed and the proceeds of its sale will go a very long way towards the cost of this work.
At that time there was no opposition to substantial reclamation of the river; it would not be until reclamation, in the 1950s for the construction of the Narrows Bridge and interchange, that the community began to resist further loss of water area.
O'Connor was able to appoint excellent men to key positions. The state (now moving grudgingly towards federation with other Australian
52
states) had not been an attractive place for professionals, and there was some local opposition to appointing staff from overseas. However the attainment of responsible government, the vigour of the administration under Forrest, and its ambitious public works programme in particular, the appointment of O'Connor, and especially the series of rich gold finds which culminated, in 1892 and 1893, with the discovery of the Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie fields, had quickly changed that conception. O'Connor appointed three experienced engineers from New Zealand: F. W. Martin, W. W. Dartnell and A. W. Dillon Bell. The last frequently served as O'Connor's deputy when the Engineer in Chief had to be away. Special branches in the Department of Public Works were created and the architect George Temple Poole, already in government service, was put in charge of the architectural division until his retirement in 1897. He was succeeded by Dillon Bell (Tauman 1975, p. 77).
O'Connor had another problem in the early years, in addition to those of creating a new department; the government ministers were also learning how to administer their departments under responsible government (Tauman 1975, p. 78).
Until 1895, when work on the Fremantle harbour was constituted a separate branch of the Department of Works, with an engineer in charge, O'Connor himself carried out much of the daily supervision of the work in the harbour. Moreover this was a period when his duties both as Engineer-in-Chief and as acting General Manager of the Government Railways were expanding rapidly (Tauman 1975, p. 78).
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INNER HARBOUR CONSTRUCTION SCENES (Photocopied from Port of Fremantle Quarterly, Autumn 1968)
Limestone for the inner harbour breakwaters being quarried at Rocky Bay.
Construction of Victoria Quay and dredging of the inner harbour early in 1897.
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Preliminary work began. At the same time, to ameliorate conditions at the Long Jetty, that jetty was extended; railway lines were extended to it and road approaches completed. Quarry sites at Rocky Bay were tested, surveyed and opened. A railway was laid from the quarry to Rous Head to convey the stone; rolling stock and equipment were purchased.
Construction of the North mole was begun in November 1892. Both moles were to be constructed using the pierre perdues system; random deposition of large blocks of stone on the sea bed. The North Hole was originally to be 894.3 m long. That length was achieved by January 1895 and it was decided to extend it to 1051.6 m; the new target being achieved by November 1895. It was terminated with a rounded head faced with selected stone and the depth of water at its end was 8.5 m. The mole was constructed entirely of stone from the Rocky Bay quarries.
The possibility of further extension, of a submerged mole 365.8 m long as far as Entrance Rocks, was considered but not undertaken. North Beach, a narrow neck of sand dunes on a rock shelf, which linked Rous Head to the mainland, was strengthened with a rubble stone embankment (PWD 1896).
The North Mole was placed so that
the impact of waves against it in the north-westerly gales tends to drive the sand on the sea bottom towards the shore rather than from the shore (Anon. n.d.).
Work on the South Mole began in August 1894. It was planned to extend 609.6 m from Arthur Head. Work proceeded slowly at first.
Larger material from the levelling of part of Arthur Head was used.
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After the completion of the North Mole the stone from Rocky Bay was brought across the river by a bridge, designed to become a bridge for road traffic after the completion of harbour construction, to speed up work on this mole.
Simultaneously with work on the moles the blasting and dredging of the bar at the river mouth, and dredging of the entrance channel and inner harbour began. The bar was described as 'a long rolling ridge of rock, principally coralline limestone and sandstone' (PWD 1896). Blasting of the bar commenced in July 1894. Temporary wooden stages were erected over the bar and shot holes were drilled by hand.
A statement lodged in the Battye Library (PR 2057) by the son of H. Passmore, officer in charge of this work, claims that the work was carried out by 'a party of convicts'. It is most unlikely that any of the transported convicts remained in custody twenty years after the cessation of transportation. It is possible that local prison inmates were employed, but it has not been possible to verify this at the time of writing. Passmore's son was 85 years old when he wrote his statement, fifty years after work began on removing the bar. His memory may have been unreliable on this point, although his recall of the method of work appears accurate.*
- The Western Australian Museum has in its history collection an embroidered picture worked in great detail, in wool, of the construction of the harbour, by H. Passmore.
The rate of progress was restricted because of the proximity of the
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town of Fremantle. Relatively small charges had to be used, and there could not be simultaneous detonation of a large number of charges. Dredging of blasted rock commenced in October 1896 with the dredge Fremantle. A more powerful dredge, Parmelia, arrived on 4 October 1896 and was soon working with the Fremantle.
In preparation for reclamation, the line of the quay on the south side was defined by construction of an embankment along the north face of the proposed reclamation. The sand dredge Premier began work on deepening the inner harbour. Most of the spoil was deposited behind the embankment. Smaller spoil from the levelling of part of Arthur Head was also deposited there (PUD 1896).
Work proceeded ahead of schedule. The North Mole on completion contained about 440,000 m3 of rock. During 1897 the South Mole had been completed to a length of 621.8 m. 154 tonne of explosives had been used on removing the bar and 659,800 tons of the rock had been dredged. 414,400 m3 of sand had been removed from the Inner Harbour by the end of that year. (PUD plan 5838 1897).
Because of the heavy traffic due to the gold rushes temporary wharfage was constructed; 304.8 m along north mole and 91.4 m along the South Mole. However, there was considerable congestion and delay in unloading cargo aa late as 1896, mostly due to the inadequacy of the railway system. The Morning Herald reported on 18 February of that year that tons of food lay rotting at the wharves and machinery that was needed by the mines was taking months on the road, and yet still nothing was done.
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Reorganisation of the management of the railways, including the sacking of the minister, enabling Forrest to assume the ministry temporarily, and the temporary berths which O'Connor had constructed, eased the situation.
Victoria Quay was substantially finished during 1897 and the entrance channel and inner harbour had been excavated sufficiently for vessels to enter. During construction the swinging basin within the inner harbour had been increased in width from 243.8 m to 426.7m. Although construction was continuing on the north side, the inner harbour was effectively opened to traffic on 4 May 1897, when the S.S. Sultan, a steamer operated by the Western Australian Steam Navigation Company, berthed on its return from Singapore. In its annual report to June 1897, the Public Works Department was able to state that overseas vessels have continuously made use of the new wharves as fast as completed.
By then the total wharfage available, including temporary wharves by the moles, was 1752.6 m.
Patricia M. Brown, in an unpublished thesis, has claimed that O'Connor's ultimate ambition, however, that of having the harbour accepted as Western Australia's first port and mail port, finally came to fruition because of the determination and enterprise of the Fremantle mercantile group in general, and one member in particular, namely Arthur James Diamond. (Brown 1989, p.17)
Brown has given a detailed account of the contribution of the Fremantle
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merchants to the agitation for a harbour, but has not provided sufficient evidence that this was effective in bringing about the political decision to make Fremantle the principal port of the state. It can be assumed that the efforts of the merchants had some effect but Forrest's long-standing ambition was crucial. His determination to develop Fremantle on the west coast as the principal port of the colony, rather than Albany on the south coast, or even Esperance, was also integrated with his rail building and land development policies. From a very early time in his life, possibly ever since his trans-continental ride-and-walk along the Great Australian Bight to Adelaide in 1870, he was convinced that there should be both a telegraph and a rail link between west and east Australia. The telegraph line was completed near his track in 1877. A decade later he was advocating a trans-railway at the first Science Congress in Sydney in 1888, again at the first of the Federation Conventions in 1891, and persistently thereafter, especially during the long-drawn-out debates and public controversies associated with the Federal Movement in 1895-99. He regarded it as a 'sine qua non' for Western Australia's entrance into the Federation and unsuccessfully tried to get a written guarantee before finally committing the colony to surrender a substantial part of its sovereignty in 1901. To this was linked his long-desired objective of making Fremantle the Brindisi of Australia, by giving it an artifical harbour so that it would become the gateway through which passed all
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mails, and possibly also most visitors, to and from the Home Country. Then Perth would no longer be 'round a corner, but on the main road (Crowley 1988, p.16)
Brindisi was the Italian port where mail and passengers could embark or disembark after or before overlanding through Europe. The concept of Fremantle as a Brindisi has recently been revived for consideration.
Forrest still had to convince the other Australian states that mail steamers should use the new harbour. Arthur Diamond (who was a baggage and customs agent) made a very important contribution at this point.
In order to counter the moves made against the harbour by the inter-state companies and the British mail steamers, Diamond had gone, in 1892, at his own expense, but with the blessing of the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce, to try and persuade the prestigious shipping company, the North German Line (Norddeutscher Lloyd Bremen) to allow their mail steamers to make Fremantle their first port of call in Australia. (Brown 1989, p. 48).
He was successful, and on 23 February 1898 the NDL vessel Prinz Regent Leopold became the first mail steamer to berth in the new harbour. The event was celebrated with a banquet in Fremantle Town Hall.
Other colonies, and Albany, still resisted attempts to make Fremantle the principal port of call for mail steamers. While O'Connor and Forrest were in London in 1897 they had discussions with officials of the two major British shipping lines, P. & O. and Orient. The new
60
harbour finally received the approval of the Post Master General in London on 3 August 1900 and the first British mail steamer R.M.S. Ormuz berthed on 13 August. Forrest had finally achieved his ambition.
The effect on Albany was dramatic. In 1891 58 ships of total metric tonnage 42,280 called at Fremantle in comparison with 203 (471,600 tonne) at Albany; by 1902 the comparable figures for Fremantle were 410 (1,061,900 tonne) and for Albany 248 (549,600 tonne) (Tauman 1975, pp 87-88). Although the number of ships calling at Albany had increased by about 22%, the tonnage had increased by only 16%, indicating a decline in the average size of vessels. In contrast the number of ships calling at Fremantle had increased by 600% and the tonnage by 2,400%, indicating a dramatic increase in the average size of vessels.
Victoria Quay had been designed and constructed entirely as a marginal quay, that is a continuous wharf. Seven 'finger piers', projecting obliquely into the harbour basin were planned for the north side. Indeed the Orient Line said that it would not berth its ships alongside the Victoria Quay wharf, so one of the planned piers was completed to accommodate them. In practice Orient Line steamers did not use it, but berthed at Victoria Quay. The piers were abandoned and a continuous quay, similar to Victoria Quay, was constructed on the north side, allowing a wider inner basin for the turning of vessels. There were other advantages, as finger piers had only a narrow opening providing access to the shore: they provided a maximum number of berths for a given length of foreshore and were adequate for cargoes and vehicles using
61
ports in the early years of the 20th Century. But as trade and motor traffic increased the narrow approach ways became bottlenecks. It says much for O'Connor's foresight that, in the 1890s, he chose the type (marginal) of wharf for Fremantle. (Tull 1985, p.121)
A temporary slipway was constructed at Rous Head, able to accommodate vessels up to 198 m long and 48.8 m keel length. This slipway continued to be used for nearly fifty years.
When work was substantially completed by the end of 1903 the project was ahead of schedule. The increased cost (£1,353,920 as against the estimate of £800,00) was largely due to design changes, such as the increased length of the north mole and the substantially larger width of the swinging basin. The South Mole, which was completed to the original design, cost only £700 more than its estimated cost of £70,000. By that year nett earnings already exceeded interest charges on loans (Le Page 1986, p. 199).
O'Connor did not live to see the completion of his harbour, or of his great Goldfields Water Supply Scheme. He had committed suicide in March 1902, borne down by overwork and the strain of defending himself against attacks, sometimes vicious, on his work, especially the Goldfields water scheme.
By the end of this period
Fremantle held an unassailable position as the leading port of Western Australia (Wagner 1988, p. 33)
O'Connor's design had been so farsighted the inner harbour was able to accommodate most large vessels during its first sixty years of
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operation. However,
It is possible that the thoroughness with which O'Connor provided a safe harbour, sufficient to accommodate shipping 'during the forseeable future', made Western Australian's complacent. In succeeding decades, when the economic activities of the state were expanding significantly, further major harbour developments were delayed. O'Connor's idea of upriver extensions were not realized. In the press of other works in the colony the proposal for an up-river bridge to carry both road and rail traffic, for which the land had been resumed in the region of Rocky Bay, was lost from sight. The graving dock he had planned at Rocky Bay did not materialise. Instead, in later years, a costly and unsuccessful attempt was made to construct a graving dock within the harbour at Fremantle (Tauman 1975, p. 86)
The town of Fremantle was affected greatly by the harbour construction. It created a need for new public and commercial buildings, and also caused a shift of the central business district towards the Cliff Street entrance to the quay. 'Phillimore Place' in particular reflects this. The northern side of the 'Place' is built on reclaimed land; the facades of the southern side follow the original river shore line. The design and quality of the buildings in this precinct are, in general, superior to the more or less contemporary buildings of High Street. In addition the Post Office in Market Street, the present Railway Station, and the woolstores, hotel, and other commercial buildings along Elder Place and Beach Street were built. Any future re-development
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of Victoria Quay should reflect this relationship between the quay and the central business district.
The construction of the railway and of the harbour also alienated the town from the river. In particular, construction of the railway workshops and the station, near the river end of Cliff Street, had alienated the land known as the Fremantle Green or Recreation Ground. This was an area of formerly low-lying river foreshore which had been reclaimed by the citizens of Fremantle for their own use. This was another loss which affected most townspeople and was bitterly opposed. (Reece & Pascoe 1983, p.42; Parl. Deb., Vol. V 1880, p. 1550)
However, there had also been support for the location of the workshops in the Fremantle area, because of the boost they would give to commerce and industry in the town. (Inquirer 24 Sept. 1880)
Later in the decade, the condition and organisation of the workshops were criticised, and the site by then was thought to be too small. A Royal Commission, appointed in 1889, found some shortcomings. It was proposed that the workshops should be removed to Midland Junction. Nothing was done for several years. The matter was raised again in Parliament early in September 1895. Then the members for Fremantle (Marmion) and North Fremantle (Moss) opposed the move on the grounds that the transfer of the workshops staff, now numbering about 300, would affect Fremantle's commerce. Marmion proposed an alternative site in Richmond (now part of East Fremantle). Marmion and Moss took offence when Venn, the Commissioner of Railways, said
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EARLY SCHEMES OF PORT DEVELOPMENT 1891-1914 (Tydeman 1948, vol. 3, App. 15)
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I will not advocate as a reason for the removal of the workshops, that the vicinity to the town is at all times an objectionable element, or that it is against the proper discipline and organisation of large bodies of men. That fact is one that goes without saying. (Parl. Deb., Vol. VIII 1895, p.814)
Moss replied
I think that he will find that probably the people of Fremantle are equally as moral as other people in any part of the colony are, and they do not wish to be taken into the wilds of the bush for the purpose of allowing the honourable gentleman to moralise to them. (Ibid.)
Marmion thundered, with some mixing of his metaphors, that Venn had
suggested that the influences in and around Fremantle are of a bad kind, and that the poor men in the workshops are likely to be affected to such a deplorable extent that there is no alternative left for the Honourable Commissioner but to appear as their protecting Aegis, to take them under his cloak for safety, and to remove them to the rural simplicity and solitude of the bush so that they will be free from the contaminating influence of that dreadful place Fremantle. (op. cit., p.831)
Venn moved formally for the removal of the workshops to Midland Junction, even though
the supporters of Fremantle argued that it 'would be a great blow to Fremantle which had a quarter of the State's population, and thus to the State itself'. (Butcher n.d., p-11)
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The motion was passed on 5 September 1895, but the transfer did not take place until 1904. During the first half of that year 5 officers and 314 men were moved to Midland Junction. The transfer was completed by the beginning of 1905. Although the population of Fremantle continued to increase during those years, the transfer of the workshops meant that several hundred families had to leave Fremantle, bringing a serious slump in housing and retailing. It was not until the arrival of numbers of British immigrants under the assisted passage scheme instituted by the State government in 1903 that commercial life began to recover. (Reece & Pascoe 1983, p.56)
As will be seen later proposals (in the 1920s and in 1948) would have alienated the town from the seashore south of Arthur Head and, at least on the former occasion, the Minister for Works opposed this. However, in 1966, the standard gauge railway was extended around the town, resulting in the removal of the original stairway to the Round House, and creating an intrusive barrier between the town and the sea. Proposed electrification of this line, and its extension to Rockingham, will create an even more emphatic barrier, because of the intrusive pylons and the more frequent passage of passenger trains and, possibly, of long freight trains if the proposed container terminal at Catherine Point is constructed.
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CHAPTER 2 : 1897 - 1955
INNER HARBOUR DEVELOPMENT
Generally this was a period of consolidation of the inner harbour, very much as it was planned by O'Connor. Towards the end of the period upstream extension was undertaken, and there were improvements in efficient cargo-handling, including increased mechanisation and bulkhandling of wheat.
Major developments were slowed or prevented by two world wars and the intervening Depression. After World War II, the new mineral boom had much less direct impact on Fremantle and on its harbour. Export of mineral sands, nickel concentrates, and iron ore, and other bulk cargoes such as wood chips, were handled through new facilites at ports such as Bunbury and Geraldton, and through new ports in the northwest. By 1955 the development of the new industrial area at Kwinana necessitated the opening of new port facilities in Cockburn Sound.
This period was also the heyday of the passenger liner, with both tourists and migrants. In the next period passenger traffic collapsed dramatically when the aeroplane replaced the liner.
In this period the development of the inner harbour was by
a process of land reclamations to create handling areas on the landward side of sea walls (which)... came to an end in 1955 with the creation of a new deep water approach to Cockburn Sound, which by the creation of a series of specialised terminals was transformed into the Outer Harbour (Wagner 1988, p. 33).
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2.1 : 1897-1918 : Consolidation and war
Economic watersheds as signifcant as the 1890s in Western Australia are invariably followed by periods of consolidation. As gold yields declined after 1904, so sustained growth came to depend increasingly upon other sectors, especially agriculture (Appleyard 1981, p. 227).
We have already seen, in the previous chapter, that Fremantle's economy suffered the additional blow of the transfer of 300 families to Midland Junction. The population of the State actually decreased, although only by 0.3 %, in 1907, largely due to the tapering off of fresh gold discoveries, and the departure of those who had not succeeded in their quest for gold. During the first decade of the century wheat 'became by far the most important agricultural export'; crop acreage expanded from 30,000 ha in 1900 to 211,000 h in 1910, a seven-fold increase (Appleyard 1981, p. 228).
The harbour was able to cope with this development by increased efficiency of cargo-handling, rather than by major developments. Gold, of course was not a bulky export.
The control of the Port of Fremantle had been divided between the Harbour Master's Department (which became known as the Harbour and Lights Department in 1870) and the Customs Department. The former dealt with arrivals and movements of shipping, with pilots and signals, and with control and safety of the harbour generally. The Customs Department controlled jetty and shore activities and the loading and discharging of cargoes. Further division of control occurred in 1891, when the Railways Department took over control of
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the Long Jetty when the railway was extended on to it. Under the Fremantle Trust Act (1902), control of the Port of Fremantle was taken over by the Fremantle Harbour Trust on 1 January 1903. The Trust was administered by five Commissioners. It continued to use the Public Works Department as its design and construction authority (Le Page 1986, p. 330).
By 1902 the dredging of the entrance channel and of the inner harbour to a depth of 9.1 m had been completed. Dredging was made easier because the bed of the harbour was not solid rock but 'a mixture of sand, clay and calcareous sandstone'. This would have made it difficult to construct concrete wharf walls, and may have been the reason why jarrah piles were used. However, government persuasion may -as it did when the first piles came to be replaced - have affected the decision. (Tull 1985, p.122)
One major project remained; the construction of a graving dock. This was first proposed in 1897 when O'Connor requested a consultant, Napier Bell, to report on it. Although correspondence ensued during 1897 and 1898, the project remained dormant until 1902. There was considerable debate as to the suitability of sites on the northern and southern sides of the harbour. Although Fremantle business people wanted this dock, the Perth Chamber of Commerce resolved, on the 10 December 1902, that its construction was not warranted in the prevailing economic conditions. By that time the gold boom had begun to taper off.
However, the government in 1908 invited a British engineer, expert in dock construction. Sir Whately Eliot, to report on the proposal. He
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arrived in Fremantle in May and reported on 24 June. He finally came down in favour of the Rous Head site, although he realised that there would be problems with setting foundations on the porous limestone river bed. Against much opposition preparation work, on site continued and the government appointed J. T. Rowbotham to carry out the work. By late 1910, when he arrived, the site had been dredged to 14.9 m below low water level. He examined results of tests on the bedrock and advised the Fngineer-in-Chief to abandon the work. His recommendation was not accepted at first, but construction was finally abandoned in 1912 (Le Page 1986, pp 322329).
Three transit sheds ('B', 'C' and ' D') were erected on Victoria Quay during 1902.* During 1904-05 Victoria Quay, for 426.7 m east of Cliff Street, was raised by 0.91 m, to allow for a loading platform at the rear of the transit sheds, and electric lighting was extended throughout the Quay. Two more new transit sheds were constructed on the higher part of the quay. One of the buildings used by the Public Works Department during construction of the harbour was erected at the west end of the quay 'to meet the requirements of coastal traffic' (FHT 1903). By 1904 the quay had nine transit sheds. It is worth noting that the Fremantle Harbour Trust Commissioners described the new sheds as 'splendid structures'. (FHT 1904)
The Commissioners intended, when the new sheds were completed, to
- A chronology of work in the Harbour, and on Victoria Quay, in particular, 1902-1990, is provided in Appendix II.
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berth passenger liners as near as possible to the Railway Station entrance to the quay. They wished to impress on the government the need for a central approach to the quay. At that time the Cliff Street entrance was 'almost entirely used'; the eastern entrance was used by 'only a minimum of traffic'. The Commissioners wished the design of the new station yard to pay attention to this.(FHT 1903) In the event their wishes were ignored, leaving a permanent traffic problem at the Cliff Street entrance.
A further extension (411.5 m) to North Mole was begun in July 1897 and completed by December 1902. By then its total length was 1,463 m. The extreme end was constructed of granite from quarries at Darlington and Collie. During 1902 the last 45.7 m of the South Mole was also topped with granite in preparation for the erection of a cast iron lighthouse. (W. A. Year Book 1902-04. p. 1086)
Two cast iron lighthouses were delivered in 1903. One was erected at the end of South Mole. However, it was
immediately found that the light was altogether unsuitable for the position, as its rays were visible from beyond Rottnest Island and the Straggler's Reef, and were therefore highly dangerous, as being liable to be mistaken for the safety white occulting ray of the Woodman's Point light which marks the fairway into Gage Roads. (FHT 1903)
The light was discontinued and rearranged to be quite distinctive as a f1xed green light. The North Mole light would be a fixed red one. The cast iron lighthouse imported for North Mole was handed over to the government for installation at Gantheaume Point, Broome. The old
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framework tower on North Mole was to be replaced with a 'more presentable edifice' when the Mole was sufficiently settled to carry a permanent structure. (FHT 1903)
In June 1902 the suction dredge Premier completed all the dredging within the harbour that could be economically done by a suction dredge, and was laid up. It was sent to Albany in 1903.
Now that the Departmental Workshop was not required for harbour construction, pipe casting facilities were installed and pipes of various diameters were produced for the government. (Le Page 1986, p. 330)
The government had included the Long Jetty and the South Jetty in the schedule of value of property vested in the Harbour Trust. The Long Jetty was valued at its original cost, £.60,596 ($121,191) plus the cost of maintenance since, £10,560 ($21,120).
The condition of the structure when the Trust was formed was so bad that it was quite useless as a revenue producing item; in fact it was positively unsafe to attempt to work it at all ... (it) probably earned sufficient revenue to have paid for itself many times over... (The Commissioners) objected strongly to being charged with it now when its days of usefulness were past and it was dangerous. (FHT 1904)
The Commissioners found that the Trust was legally liable for public safety on the jetty.
The only possible use which the jetty could be put to was that of a pleasure promenade for the townspeople of Fremantle... the annual charges for light and interest alone, without a
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penny for maintenance or repair, would come in round figures to about £7,000 (§14,000) per annum ... and this, too, without the possibility of being made to return anything in the shape of revenue. (FHT 1904)
The Commissioners therefore erected a barrier across the jetty at its shore end; the barrier was locked every night from dusk to dawn. The Fremantle Municipal Council took exception to this and asked that the jetty be made available as a public promenade at night. The Commissioners replied that
if the government would excise the jetty from their guardianship, and so relieve them of the responsibility of paying for and maintaining and lighting it, they would be glad to hand it over for public recreation or any other purpose which was considered desirable, but that so long as the present responsibilities rested upon them the Commisioners would not saddle the working portions of the Harbour with such a heavy and nonproductive load. (FHT 1904)
In the following year the Commissioners noted that both jetties had been removed from their control and revested in the Crown. South Jetty was handed over to the Fisheries Department, and it was understood that the Long Jetty would be handed over to the Fremantle Municipal Council for use as a promenade.
In October 1911 the Engineer-in-Chief, James Thompson, reported that the piles in the harbour had been badly ravaged by the marine worm teredo navalis, and stated that it would be necessary to practically reconstruct the wharves. No-one seems to have foreseen the
74
risk of such severe teredo attack. No reports of serious teredo damage to the Long Jetty have been sighted. Teredo can thrive in waters of widely varying salinity and temperature, so the estuarine environment of the river mouth would not have been specially favourable to them. However, they can become established more successfully in still waters, *and it is possible that the many piles under the quay would have created a relatively calmer environment, whereas the water around the Long Jetty would have been more turbulent.
- This information was provided by Loisette Marsh of the Department of Molluscs, Western Australian Museum.
Certainly it was well-known that teredo could damage timber piles in river structures, although there was considerable trust in the ability of jarrah to resist their attack, as a curious controversy in 1880 had shown. This began with the apparently strange claim that round piles would resist attack more than square piles. The editor of the West Australian had expressed the opinion that the railway bridge at North Fremantle should have been constructed with round piles rather than square ones. The editor was apparently not willing to accept the arguments of James H. Thomas, Commissioner of Railways, in his letter to that paper on 27 January:
square piles, tarred and charred, would last as long, if not longer than the round ... I was not aware, however, that there existed in the colony undoubted proofs of such being the case. He quoted a report from Mr Higman, Superintendant of Roads, on the
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bridge over the Preston River at Australind.
The presence of teredo is abundantly proved by the fact that an old barge of soft wood skin and oak frame is perfectly honeycomb (sic). The piles are 9 inches (22.9 cm) square; they were cut between the coast and the hills, and their preservation throughout is shewn by the specimen.
Some of the piles had been in the river for 35 years. Higman argued that the piles that had been hewn square benefited from the removal of the outer 'white wood' which was less resistant to teredo than the heart wood.
A contributor to the rival paper, signing himself 'One in the trade' was very stirred
I take it that the greatest enemies of the colony are those who persistently aver - notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary - that only round piles will resist the ravages of the sea worms, as it is well known that in the greater portion of engineering works, ship building, &c, it is absolutely necessary to employ square timber.
The general faith in jarrah must have contributed to the selection of it for the construction of the Quay; moreover the resulting contracts would have been a major boost to the local timber industry. It is unlikely that the relatively new material, reinforced concrete, would have been chosen at that date. Whatever the reasons for the choice of jarrah, during 1912-1913 the whole of Victoria Quay had to be repiled and redecked. At the same time the eastern end was extended by 60.7 m (Le Page 1986, p. 330).
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Unfortunately infested stumps of the original piles were left in situ and the new piles were soon attacked by the industrious worm.
The Harbour Trust wanted to use concrete piles but was pressured by the government to continue using jarrah piles in order to protect the local timber industry. (Tull 1985, p. 122)
A major change in the method of cargo handling was introdudced in 1904. Initially the Harbour Trust was not involved in the handling of cargo on the wharves. Railway lines had been laid on the water side of the transit sheds enabling goods to be landed 'directly into railway wagons and consigned inland or vice versa'. Goods which required sorting were processed in the sheds and then loaded directly into rail wagons on the railway lines on the landward side for consignment inland.
This system of consigning direct from the ship to destination is fostered by the Trust and results in great savings in charges as well as securing rapidity in goods reaching their ultimate destination. (W. A. Year Book 1902-04, p. 744)
Opening of the first two of the new sheds enabled concentration of the whole of general cargo sorting working to the ship's side, doing away with old and costly method of landing cargo into railway wagons and trucking to railway sheds or yards. The Commissioner of Railways consequently shut down two large sheds and the open loading yard, commonly known as 'The Farm'.
Originally it was the Commissioners' policy to leave cargo handling to be arranged between the ship and the owner of the goods.
The Trust
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could stand aside from all responsibility in connection with the cargo on the wharves... there was continually existing a feeling that the arrangement of allowing the two principals to the contract to work together, and in direct touch with one another, was giving the satisfaction and protection to the merchants and, through them, to the consumers generally, that
they were entitled to enjoy; the fact being that the shipowners held to the contention that in the terms of their maritime contract their responsibility as marine carriers ended at the slings, and that although they consented, in consideration of the payment of certain rates, to handle the goods from the slings to the point of delivery those rates were in payment for definite services rendered, and covered no responsibility after the goods had left the sling. (FHT 1904)
A conference was arranged. The Commissioners were formally requested by both the Chamber of Commerce and overseas shipowners to take over the work. The Commissioners agreed, but the government had to formulate new regulations. This was done by 1 May 1904. Fremantle was the only wharf or port authority in Australia to perform 'the full function of a wharfinger' (Stevens 1929, p. vii)
Up to 1905 the Commissioners had obtained their electric power supply from the Railway Department's Power House at Arthur Head. This could no longer meet the increased demand. Following negotiations with the Fremantle Municipal Council, the Harbour Trust and the Railways Department entered into an agreement to obtain power, for the next three years, from the new Fremantle Municipal Tramways Power House at Point Marquis. (FHT 1905)
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Various buildings were in hand or found to be needed at this date. For a long time (sic) past Victoria Quay, and the land contiguous thereto, has accommodated a number of detached buildings occupied by different stevedoring and other firms in connection with the work of the port, and the variety of design, and in many cases the decrepid (sic) appearance of these buildings had anything but a pleasing aspect. This was greatly accentuated when it became necessary, in order to enable the new Quay sheds and the running of the Quay to be carried out, to move these buildings into one spot, and the collection was so unsightly that the Commissioners decided they must go ... therefore the P. W. D. designed and erected by contract a terrace of buildings abreast of 'B' Shed, divided into two sections of two rooms each and a lean-to at the rear ... the new buildings are built of timber and iron, quite plain in appearance, but they are uniform, and are quite sufficiently presentable...
The old buildings are now being removed. (FHT 1906)
A new shelter for the wharf labourers was also built in 1906, on the approach road to the new offices. It was described as being 18.3 m x 6.1 m, of wood and iron with a granolithic floor' and had seating for 100 men. It sounded cheerless and it is not surprising that, although a new shelter had been requested by their union, the men appeared 'to prefer gathering in knots about the quay and perching on fences, rather than occupy a building that has been specially provided for them' (FHT 1907).
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During 1907 an Information Bureau was erected. The 'Old Fish Market', erected at the east end of the quay some years previously by the government, was converted to a store for spare parts for the pilot boat Lady Forrest. The Maintenance Workshop, apparently one of the sheds used by the P. W. D. during construction of the harbour, was 'only a rough and more or less tumbledown shed'. A new and larger shed was required. A building 'previously used as the dining room at the Old Men's Depot at Mt Eliza' was purchased from the P. W. D. for £40 ($80). It was transported by water to Fremantle and re-erected at the west end of Victoria Quay. A railway siding was laid through it, connecting it with a construction jetty at 'Arthur Point' . A buoy and chain shed depot was established on the west side of this shed. (FHT 1907)
The original bollards on wharves were straight. New vessels had increasingly higher sides, so mooring lines tended to lift off these bollards. Replacement began in 1910 with curved bollards as used at Manchester. (FHT 1910)
In 1908 a second, 'temporary', bridge was erected across the river to North Fremantle to cope with increased traffic, upstream of the existing convict-built bridge, at a lower level and without a high central arch. The two bridges became known as the high-level and low-level bridges. The original bridge was closed to all but pedestrians and was to be replaced with a wider bridge with a swinging span to allow for high-masted boats. When the tramway was extended to North Fremantle the low-level bridge proved to be at an awkward angle. Examination of the old bridge showed that 306 of its 319 piles were in
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original condition. The bridge was reconditioned and its central hump removed. The low-level bridge was dismantled in 1909, but the original bridge survived until the 1930s. (Fremantle Advertiser, 25.9.30, p.1)
In 1912 the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce proposed an extension of the harbour seawards (Fig. 22). Its essential features were
(a) Protection by the extension of North Mole and the construction of an island breakwater along Minden Reef. These would shelter a dredged channel into Owens Anchorage.
(b) Conversion of South Mole to a double line of wharfage.
(c) Construction of three wet-docks south of South Mole.
(d) Extension of North Mole westerly and southerly.
(e) Consequent reclamation would create more than 80.9 ha of land for railway and other purposes. (BL PR 8481)
It appears that this received little consideration. Even if it had, the outbreak of war in 1914 would almost certainly have prevented construction. Construction would have involved the loss of Bathers Beach and much foreshore south of it, of the Round House apparently, and of the Esplanade, reclamation of which had finished only in 1908.
During 1913-1914 the harbour was deepened to 10.97 m and removal of the 'old mail jetty' (the pier on the north side built at the request of the Orient Line), which was badly damaged by teredo, began. Demolition was completed in 1915, thus removing the only real obstruction which (had) existed in the Inner Harbour to the detriment of easy handling of large ships, so that the work of demolition (was) being regarded with favour by
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FIG. 22 : The Fremantle Chamber of Commerce proposal (1912)
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pilots and shipmasters generally, (FHT 1914).
North Quay was extended 182.9 m to the site of the aborted graving dock basin, and beyond that for another 253 m (Le Page 1986, p. 330).
In the Harbour Trust's 1913 Annual Report there was a rare reference to the working condition of the lumpers:
The excessive heat especially on some days during last summer caused some of the men engaged in loading wheat on top of the stacks in the grain shed to faint, and in order to remove heated air under the roof a number of large ventilators were put in.
With the outbreak of war in 1914 development virtually ceased. The Harbour Trust's reports during the war years refer only to maintenance, to alterations to some of the sheds and rail lines, and repairs to some sections of Victoria Quay because of further teredo damage.
During 1914 the government appointed a special advisory Board to consider and report on the advisability of adopting bulk-handling of wheat. This Board reported in favour of the proposal and recommended that it be ready for the 1915 crop. However the Harbour Trust Commissioners reported that they were awaiting a government decision about the direction of harbour extension. They were to wait some time.
In 1911 the federal government proposed to construct a naval base (Henderson) in Cockburn Sound. Legislation was mooted which would have placed the Sound, including the areas of the Success and Parmelia Banks, under the control of the Commonwealth.
In a speech in 1912, Mr G. F. Pearce, Commonwealth Minister for Defence predicted
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commercial as well as naval development of Cockburn Sound. He also raised the possibility of Fremantle being the port of the great Australian continent and not of a State. (Tull 1985, p.124)
His vision of transhipment of cargo from giant vessels was similar to Forrest’s vision of Fremantle as the nation's 'Brindisi'. However, it appears that Pearce was proposing a 'national port' under Commonwealth control.
Dredging of channels through the banks was started. The Harbour Trust Commissioners reported, in 1916, that the legislation had still not been passed, although the 'Commonwealth Authorities are busily at work within the Harbour Trust's jurisdiction.' Construction was halted when the only visible signs were small stone groynes at what is now known as Naval Base. The project was abandoned finally in 1918.
Had work proceeded, and Cockburn Sound come under the control of the Commonwealth, the subsequent history of the port would have been substantially different. The extensions in to the Outer Harbour, which were to begin in 1955, may have occurred much earlier. It is also probable that the development of the town of Fremantle would have been affected considerably - either by development southward or by the development of a new town or commercial and industrial area on the shore of Cockburn Sound. However, it is unlikely that the State government would have surrendered control of Cockburn Sound, especially when the war was over and the construction of a naval base was no longer imperative.
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1919-1945 : Readjustment, Depression and War
During the thirty years following 1913 the Western Australian economy, which had just experienced two decades of unparalleled prosperity, was subjected to a series of the most severe external shocks of its entire 150 year history (to 1979). These external shocks - which included two world wars, an international depression and recession, and a major drought -complicated the economic readjustment which commenced after the goldmining boom had peaked in 1903. The main, in fact startling economic consequence of these difficult years of consolidation and adjustment was that the 1913 level of real per capita income was not exceeded until 1950. This is not to say that the Western Australian economy did not change or develop during these three decades ... the structure of this economy in the late 1940s was significantly different from that in 1913, and further it was able to support a considerably larger population at the 1913 level of prosperity. What it does mean is that, on average, a generation of Western Austalians, who had come to expect marked advances in real income, had to adjust to the idea of static average living standards in the long term, and to the possibility of their deterioration in the short term (Snooks 1981, p. 237)
... Western Australia and Australia suffered economic disruption during the First World War, with the result that GDP fell, particularly at the national level, even though population increased in both cases ... during the interwar period real GDP
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increased quite rapidly - more rapidly for Western Australia than for Australia - but due to the high rate of population increase - particularly in the west - the growth of per capita income was minimal ... the Second World War stimulated considerable expansion and growth within the eastern states of Australia, but caused the Western Australian economy to stagnate. Normally structural change is associated with economic growth,but in the case of Western Australia, between 1913 and 1946, the considerable change in the economy's structure was actually an impediment to growth ... over these three decades both rural and manufacturing sectors increased their shares of GDP ... at the expense of both mining and construction, while the tertiary sector as a whole remained largely unchanged ... In consequence of this ... the contrast between the industrial-rural nature of Western and eastern Australia was heightened: in 1948 the manufacturing industry in Western Australia was only 51.3 per cent of the relative size of that for Australia as a whole, whereas in 1913 it had been as large as 71 per cent. In other words the industrialization process which began in eastern Australia during this period, and continued throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies, had little direct impact upon Western Australia (Snooks 1981, p. 239)
Snooks has been quoted as some length so that the lack of development in both Fremantle and Fremantle Harbour during this period can be understood. During the 1920s there were a number of different proposals for development of the harbour, but - as in the 1870s and
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1880s, also decades of readjustment after a period of more rapid growth - there was a great deal of talk but no action. Therefore, by the end of that decade the port 'was operating close to its sustainable maximum capacity' (Tull 1985, p. 121).
A publication of the Fremantle Harbour Trust (FHT 1921) gives details of the Harbour as it was shortly after the end of the war. The entrance channel was then about 1676 m long with a bottom width of 137 m; the inner harbour basin had a dredged area 1524 m long and of an even width of 426.7 m between the quays. The.depth of the basin was 9.14 m below low water level throughout, but in that year (1921) work had begun to deepen it to 10.97 m generally, but as much as 12.19m in parts. Victoria Quay was 1600 m long, and North Quay 1469 m. On Victoria Quay, 'where practically the whole of the general cargo business is carried out', there were ten large transit sheds of a total floor area of 19,695 m2. On North Quay there was a grain and flour shipping shed of 6,317 m2, capable of holding 300,000 sacks of wheat. By that date a bulk handling wheat elevator was proposed to be erected at the rear of this shed, with a storage capacity of 1.5 million bushels. Each quay was equipped with specially designed portable cranes.
There were mooring buoys in the harbour for ships which elected not to berth; there they could be bunkered, loaded or unloaded. The FHT Commissioners drew attention to the need to enlarge the harbour:
Room exists within the Swan River to enable Fremantle Harbour to be gradually developed and enlarged till it might excel in size most harbours of the world, with the practical advantage that every foot of extension would be an actually worked
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and earning portion of the port as a whole, there being no wasted space whatever (FHT 1921).
During the year ended 30 June 1920 721 vessels, totalling 3.792 million tonne, entered the harbour which handled 927,800 tonne of cargo.
As early as 1907, the Fremantle Harbour Trust had drawn the government's attention to the need for new railway and road bridges at Rocky Bay to allow for upstream extension of the harbour.
the bridges formed a more formidable constraint on the Inner Harbour development than did the river bar in the 19 th Century. ( Tull 1985, p.123)
The government replied inconclusively. The Trust raised the matter again after World War I, in 1919, but the government said that it required to allocate substantial finance to other projects. The Trust tried again in 1920 but the matter remained in abeyance until 1926. On the inauspicious date of 1 April of that year the Trust took up the matter yet again.
Before the results of that move are considered two events which occurred in May 1919 warrant attention: 'Bloody Sunday' and the Harbour's narrow escape from severe damage by an explosion.
'Bloody Sunday' was the day of a tragic battle, between police and lumpers, on Victoria Quay which resulted in the death of one lumper. The heritage of Victoria Quay cannot be properly assessed without including accounts of the work and experience of the dock workers, the lumpers in particular. These workers not only played key roles in the development and working of the harbour; they were also a significant element of the community of Fremantle. Connie Ellement re-calls
the lumpers who lived in her mother's boarding house in Nairn Street, where she had come to rejoin her mother after years in a Salvation Army children's home
Seated among this assertive group... I felt as if I had just come in from another planet, with a different language and with values which were the exact opposite of those being promulgated a round the pine table. (Ellement & Davidson 1987, p.120)
... here was a group which acted as if the whole of Fremantle revolved around them. (p. 122)
To this group, and to the Trade Union movement in general, the events of 'Bloody Sunday' particularly the death of the lumper Tom Edwards, were mythopoeic.
It was obvious that for both Uncle Len and Pa, the battle of the wharf and Tom Edwards' funeral with mourners stretching the whole two miles from Fremantle Trades Hall to the Fremantle Cemetery provided them with much more powerful images than any they had taken from Anzac Cove, (p.124)
To understand the causes of this tragedy the story of the lumpers has to be told, although there is space only for a brief treatment in this study. The full story has been told by Stuart McIntyre in his biography of the famous union leader Paddy Troy (McIntyre 1984) and In the centennial study by Bryn Griffiths (1989). These studies are the sources of most of the account given here, except where other sources are cited.
Working conditions for the lumpers were arduous and sometimes dangerous;
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exacting labour often taking place in dusty, airless and over-heated holds or sheds - and the dusts were sometimes toxic. They also worked long hours.
The men would leave in the morning in time for the seven-forty-five a.m. pick-up. Sometimes, they returned home fairly soon muttering terrible things about the employers' foremen.
Otherwise, they would be home for lunch, frequently covered with coal-dust or superphosphate after travelling on the back platform of the tram to avoid dirtying the more genteel passengers inside.
They returned again at five o'clock for a ninety minute tea-break, then might work through almost till midnight. Other days, the men would only get work for a couple of hours; or none. They were paid accordingly. (Ellement & Davidson 1987, p.123)
The work available fluctuated markedly according to the seasons and to the irregular arrivals of cargo vessels. In peak times up to 1500 lumpers could be employed 24 hours a day; in slack periods only a few hundred might be employed. (McIntyre 1984, p.67)
There were two pools of casual labourers: 'lumpers' and 'dockers'. The lumpers loaded and unloaded cargo; the 'dockies' worked on ship or harbour maintenance. Work was not assured, and the manner of obtaining it was humiliating and corrupt. (Stewart 1976, pp.3-4)
Initially the men assembled at a line drawn across the quay end of Cliff Street waiting for a foreman ('pannikin boss'), who stood a little way off, to blow a whistle. At the signal, the men raced to
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him; therefore the work usually went to the fittest and fleetest. Later, wire compounds ('bull rings') were erected; there the men waited for a call with as little dignity as cattle awaiting shipment.
The only way to provide at least some work for all was to restructure union membership, which opened the way to 'manipulation and even corruption within the union' (McIntyre 1984, p.71)
The system of casual labour placed the workers at a great disadvantage.
The employer could select whoever he wanted to work for him, the workers could have no real control over their conditions of employment unless they were able to regulate entry into the industry. (McIntyre 1984, p.71)
The handling of cargo was labour-intensive. Groups of lumpers worked in the ship's hold, loading or unloading slings which were conveyed to the wharf by the ship's derricks or by the few wharf cranes. Gangs on the wharf unloaded the slings, sorted out the cargo, and lumped it or wheeled it on trolleys to the sheds.
There was little mechanisation at Fremantle or any other Australian port before the second world war; indeed Fremantle was more modern than most for it did at least have some loading gantries, cranes, and belt conveyors for bulk cargoes. (McIntyre 1984, p.66)
As casual labourers, the lumpers had no service entitlements such as leave or pensions, and were paid only when working, even though it was to the advantage of shipowners and stevedoring companies to have a pool of labour at call. The lumpers on the wharf were employed by the
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Fremantle Harbour Trust, those on ships by stevedoring companies, so creating further division among the workers which militated against united union action.
It is little wonder that Connie Ellement thought that she and the lumpers came from different planets, and no wonder at all that the lumpers formed a militant group, a caste maybe, with a culture which has, as yet, been inadequately written about.
When the Lumpers Union was formed on 4 July 1889 (possibly one of the founders was versed in the history of the United States of America; the date was auspicious), it was the first time in Western Australia that unskilled workers became unionised. (Griffiths 1989, p.14). The union called its first strike in 1899; it
lasted for five weeks and was the strongest and most determined industrial action that West Australian workers had taken up to that time. (Griffiths 1989, p.17)
The union, now allied with the eastern states based Waterside Workers' Federation of Australia, became involved in a national dispute which broke out in August 1917, reaching Western Australia by the 13th when the Fremantle Lumpers refused to load the Singaporean vessel Minderoo with 1100 tons of WA flour for reasons of solidarity and for fear the flour would eventually feed the German enemy. Indeed, at the special lumpers meeting held that very day a returned soldier claimed to have seen WA flour bags in captured German trenches whilst fighting in France. It was enough for the lumpers and work stopped immediately. (Griffiths 1989, p.29; Stewart 1976, p.8)
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Both State and Commonwealth governments reacted quickly and provocatively. The former, in the name of patriotism, recruited non-union ('scab') labour to work on the wharves. The latter struck out union preference clauses and used wartime regulations to force lumpers to work beside the scabs. The lumpers resisted throughout September until forced back to work, because of the hardship imposed on their familes and because of threats that their union would be deregistered. The scabs formed an alternative union, the Fremantle National Waterside Workers Union. They were given preference over the lumpers who had to put up with left-over jobs, and who were often out of work. One lumper recalls that
Where 'A' Shed is now used to be 'A1 and 'B' Sheds with a ramp in between. They were only little sheds - not much bigger than a house. The volunteers were housed in there. They used to sleep and eat and everything in there. They were all scabs really but we had to call them volunteers. If you were cauught calling them scabs you got six months gaol. (Stewart 1976, p. 8)
There were occasional scuffles between the two groups.
Every time a troop ship came in the police put barricades across the wharf and the roads to keep the crowd back. While the police were occupied keeping the crowd back our crowd were occupied hitting hell out of the volunteer help. The authorities took the steel pickets down from the lawns of St John's Church in Fremantle. They were afraid they would be used as spears. (Stewart 1976, pp. 8-9)
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It was a situation calculated to erupt into violence. The triggering event occurred in May 1919.
A virulent strain of influenza, the 'Spanish Flu’, was spreading throughout the world, and had reached the eastern states. The Fremantle Harbour Trust required ships, on arrival, to be fumigated and then quarantined for seven days in Gage roads. The SS Dimboola arrived in Fremantle on 10 April, carrying several passengers believed to be victims of the disease, Some of the passengers were transhipped to the quarantine station at Woodman Point and merchants, waiting for urgently needed cargoes, pressured the Commonwealth quarantine officials to allow the vessel to berth before the lumpers were satisfied that it was safe to do so. The lumpers and the scabs, for once united, refused to unload the vessel. The ship was fumigated but was allowed to berth after two days instead of the usual one week of quarantine. The scabs broke ranks and began to unload the vessel on 12 April. They were forced off the wharf by the lumpers who then picketed the vessel. The lumpers were prepared to unload other ships, but the employers refused to offer the work until the scabs were allowed back on the wharves. The lumpers were supported very strongly by the Fremantle community. The impassse continued. The State Premier, Hal Colebatch, issued an ultimatum on May Day but the lumpers held out. On Sunday 4 May, Colebatch took a party of armed police and volunteer strike-breaker to the port to enable barricades to be erected for the protection of scab workers who could then unload the Dimboola. Lumpers got wind of this move and began to assemble; some at the Cliff Street entrance to the quay, others on the traffic bridge at North Fremantle.
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As Colebatch's party moved down the river in two ferries Dauntless and Foam, unionists and supporters from outside Fremantle crowded into trains and buses heading for the port. The crowd on the bridge had a truck-load of rocks, possibly from the very quarries where stone had been taken for the construction of the harbour. As the two ferries moved under the bridges they were pelted with missiles, some of the police replying with revolver shots. Most of the rocks missed; one, large enough to have sunk one of the boats, was too difficult to handle and the launches had passed safely before it could be dropped. (Wayman 1987)
Even a Roman Catholic priest 'exhorted men to go to the assistance of union pickets' (McIntyre 1984, p.7).
There was a full, though probably not unbiassed account of what ensued in the West Australian on Monday 5 May. A paraphrase follows.
The police were drawn up in two lines at the quay;
the mounted men, of whom there were about 50, facing the Cliff Street approach near the Harbour Trust buildings, and the foot police, of whom there were 80, facing eastwards towards the bridges.
At that time about 200 lumpers were congregated at Cliff Street with their president W. Renton, who had led the march from the Esplanade mounted on a white horse. He suggested to his men that there was no point in resisting the police and asked them to withdraw. But
as soon as the launches passed safely through the bridges, men and women, almost frenzied with excitement, surged past the police and came charging down the wharf ... armed with all manner
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of weapons including sticks, stones, pieces of iron, and small pieces of chain.
The crowd from the bridges were aiming to tear down the barricades which were being erected between C and B sheds. The police gradually forced them back, and violence broke out when a lumper was struck by a policeman's baton. Meanwhile a crowd, estimated to reach 4,000 was gathering near the Cliff Street entrance. Crowds, including women and children, had gathered on the railway footbridge and in the railway yards where piles of ballast metal provided many missiles.
... by luck there were three or four truckloads of old steel washers bolts and nuts. We used that as ammunition against the police. (Stewart 1976, p.9)
The lumpers and their supporters at the barricades retreated and then advanced again. The police were ordered to fix bayonets before charging the advancing group.
A lumper was immediately bayoneted and fell to the ground with a wound in his thigh. The lumper, Edward Brown, was rumoured to be a returned soldier and this travelled rapidly to the many watching war veterans, who were incensed by the news. The lumpers in Cliff Street were similarly infuriated by the sight of the bayoneting and led by the union President, W. Renton, they broke through onto the wharf to aid their comrades. (Griffiths 1989, p.33)
The police, formed up, and armed wih rifles, bayonets and batons, stopped them at the end of C Shed. The police charged, swinging rifle butts and batons. Renton's horse was dragged from under him. (Wayman
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1987). When he tried to rise he was clubbed to the ground, where he lay with a head wound. Another lumper, Tom Edwards, who was nearby tried to come to his rescue, standing astride his fallen leader. Edwards was struck on the head with a rifle butt, and collapsed, severely wounded.
The battle raged back and forth and the lumpers, backed now by some of the bystanders, seemed to be gaining ground. A Justice of the Peace read the Riot Act and live ammunition was issued to the police.
The prospect of bloody carnage was averted by the coolness of Inspector Sellenger, senior police officer in Fremantle, and Alex McCallum, Secretary of the State Labour Federation. Sellenger stepped out from the police ranks and McCallum from the crowd confronting them. A brief truce was declared; McCallum and the lumpers' leaders agreed to parley with the Premier and the Police Commissioner. As a result the Premier was granted safe passage back to Perth by river, and the police and volunteers were withdrawn.
... following another mass meeting on the Esplanade later in the day, the crowd marched to the wharf in a procession headed by hundreds of returned soldiers, many of them in uniform as the troopship Khyber had sailed in the same day and sympathetic troops had swarmed to join the lumpers once ashore.
On reaching the wharf, the demonstrators smashed the barricades and dumped them in the harbour. Then the pick-up bureau was wrecked, watched by the biggest crowd ever seen on the wharf, before the lumpers and their allies marched back to Fremantle Trades Hall, singing topical revolutionary songs
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along the way in celebration of their victory.
This most dramatic event in the history of the harbour ended in tragedy. Tom Edwards died in the evening of 7 May. On the same day the scab workers had been withdrawn, making the tragic death even more pointless.*
- If Victoria Quay is made available for development, it would be appropriate to re-locate Tom Edwards' memorial to the site of his death. The memorial could be set in a small, quiet garden which could be dedicated to the peaceful resolution of conflict.
The dramatic events diverted attention from another event, which underscored the day with irony. Sir John Forrest, elevated to the peerage as Baron Forrest of Bunbury, sailed for London in August 1918 on the SS Marathon to take up his seat in the House of Lords. He died aboard, while the vessel was anchored off Sierra Leone, on 3 September 1918. The remains of this once robust explorer and masterful politician, whose vision had helped to bring about the construction of the harbour, arrived in the SS City of Poona while the battle raged on Victoria Quay. He was buried at Karrakatta on the day that Tom Edwards died. It is likely that as many people attended the latter*s funeral. A lumper, reminiscing about the funeral which, as an eight year old, he had attended, said that the line of mourners stretched from the city of Fremantle to the cemetery on Carrington Street. He likened the 'whole episode' of Bloody Sunday to the Battle of Eureka. (Griffiths 1989, p.36)
Late in the same month the harbour came close to catastrophe. The
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SS Polgowan berthed at North Wharf with a load of explosives. After most of the crew had gone ashore, a fire broke out in the ship's hold. The Third Mate, Ralph Henry James, although aware of the acute danger, donned an asbestos suit and went down below to fight the fire while the ship's engineer, Fielding, pumped oxygen to him. If these two officers had waited until the Fire Brigade arrived it is probable that the fire would have taken hold. It was reported that there was enough TNT on board the vessel to blow up Fremantle. Even if this was an exaggeration, there can be no doubt that there would have been enormous damage to the harbour, and possibly to the town. James was awarded a silver Sea Gallantry Medal, and Fielding a bronze Medal.*
- Information from the History Department of the Western Australian Museum, which has James' medal in its collection.
Several years elapsed before there were any new developments on Victoria Quay. In 1921 'D' Shed was partly re-roofed with 'patent timber roofing' produced experimentally by the State Saw Mills (FHT 1921). In 1924 this new type of roofing was reported to be 'not entirely successful, owing to shrinkage of boards and filling of the weather stops with coal dust, etc.' which resulted in a number of small leaks. 'Elastic paint' was being applied to stop the leaks (FHT 1924).
In 1922 teredo damage had again reached the point of seriously weakening the substructure of the quay and arrangements were in hand to renew the substructure with reinforced concrete. In the same year a new slipway was under construction at Arthur Head, primarily for the construction of new hulls for the dredges Fremantle and Parmelia, but
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bullt in such a manner that it can with slight alteration be made available as a permanent slipway for overhaul of coasting vessels and dredges.' Construction proceeded slowly because dredges were required for other work, such as deepening the entrance channel. The new hull for the bucket dredge Parmelia was launched in December 1926 and machinery and fittings were transferred to it during 1928/29.
In 1921 a new ferry landing, 22.9 m long, was constructed at the west end of the quay.
Work on reconstructing the substructure with reinforced concrete began in late 1923 A concrete casting yard was set up behind the west end of Victoria Quay. By June 1924, 406 piles had been cast and 122 placed, beginning from the east end of 'D' Shed and reconstruction of 61 m of the quay was well advanced. In connection with the reconstruction it was proposed to raise the height of the quay above water level of approximately 1200 feet (365.8 m) of quay between the west end of ' C' Shed and the west end of the quay, bringing it up to the same 3 feet (0.9 m) above road level as the rest of the quay ... and ... to build thereon two up-to-date cargo sheds of the same type as ' D' and 1 E' in place of the old ’A’ and *B* Sheds (increasing the total floor area from 2,350 m2 to 3,034 m2) ... the new sheds to be provided with the same road and rail facilities as elsewhere on the quay ... (FHT 1923)
This work would require extensive rearrangement of the west end of the quay, where the shipping offices, shelter shed and maintenance workshops would have to be moved to make room for the new sheds and
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the railway. In 1927 it was decided that 'C', 'D', 'E' and 'F' Sheds should be widened. In the following year the Harbour Trust Commissioners recommended that all the sheds on the quay be increased to an average length of about 137.2 m, which was to be achieved by altering the grouping of the sheds during the reconstruction of the quay and by the elimination of two of the existing sheds. Portions of these were to be 'annexed to adjacent sheds' (FHT 1928). In 1929 'D' Shed was widened by the addition of a back bay 9.14 m wide, to a total width of'30.5 m. This shed, and ’E' and 'F' Sheds were being grouped into two large sheds 'on account of the increased length of vessels' (FHT 1929).
By 1929 the length of the quay reconstructed was 812.9 m. The eastern end was still relatively sound so, at that stage, reconstruction work was transferred to North Quay (Le Page 1986, pp. 403-404). Reconstruction and reorganisation were stopped in 1930 when the Depression caused a cut-back in expenditure.
The harbour had much silt dumped in it after the collapse of the railway bridge during a flood in 1926 and had to be redredged. Re-dredging to a new depth of 10.97 m was completed by 1929. This had caused the slope of the bank under the wharf to exceed the natural incline, so old pile stumps were left in place and extra rock was dumped where needed (Le Page 1986, p. 400). The old stumps which had been left during the first reconstruction, if they survive, may be the only relics of the original superstructure. Although the original structure had alpready been replaced, the new (and still existing structure) is part of our civil engineering heritage,being
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the first significant use of reinforced concrete in a marine structure in Western Australia (Le Page 1986, p. 400)
In 1923 the Commissioners recommended to the government that a harbour refuge for small boats be constructed between the west end of the quay and South Mole. This would require construction of a breakwater from the mole towards the entrance channel.
In 1924 fruit shippers requested the modification of one shed to provide cooler storage for fruit awaiting shipment. The Commissioners rejected the proposal as 'at most a costly experiment with no hope of achieving the object aimed at' (FHT 1924). The Trust was not prepared to part with one of their general purpose sheds for 'any lengthy period'. A deputation of fruit shippers explained that there was no need to insulate the shed; all that was required was increased ventilation to allow fruit to cool down after 'a heated run from the country in a rail wagon' and to allow carbonic acid, given off by the fruit, to be dispersed. The Commissioners agreed to ventilate one shed with 'specially constructed wire netting shutters in all door openings and exhausting cowls in the roof' (FHT 1925). The Shed was not identified. The modifications were so sucessful it was decided to incorporate them in the design of the new 'A' and 'B' Sheds soon to be constructed at the west end of the quay. It could be inferred that the storage conditions for fruit were accorded a higher priority than the working conditions for the lumpers. However, they too must have benefited from the modifications.
The Commissioners may have been complacent when they quoted the report of their Wharf Manager in 1929:
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the wharves and sheds have cargo-handling facilities which, in my opinion, leave nothing to be desired for the efficient handling of cargo ...
and that
as a result of improved industrial conditions the handling of cargo both aboard ship and ashore shows a most encouraging improvement in respect to tonnage handled to men employed.
Although the total length of the quays was over 3,000 m, there were only 15 cranes (Wagner 1988, p. 34). This suggests that the harbour was inadequately mechanised and relied still on the manual labour of the lumpers. A German observer had this to say of the harbour in the 1930s:
There is a reluctance to increase the number of cranes, because the less machinery is available, the more work there is for the dockers. And power is entirely in the hands of the workers, who jealously ensure that no dangerous competition develops by the introduction of either machinery or of lower paid immigrant labour. In all other respects the port is admi-ably equipped for the handling of both maritime and rail traffic (Wagner 1988, p. 34).
It is questionable if the power was entirely in the hands of the workers, and it is not surprising that the lumpers who had seen hard times in the 1920s, and even harder during the Depression, would do everything to protect their jobs. For a full account of conditions at this time the books by McIntyre and Griffiths should be consulted. These conditions, despite some improvements, were still not altogether
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satisfactory. The reference to immigrant labour also shows that this observer did not understand Australian labour conditions and attitudes. The lumpers were still a significant section of the community. The annual Lumpers' Picnic was a major social event. Many non-members of the union attended. The picnics were 'dry' and designed for families. Most of the river ferries were hired to transport the revellers to the picnic site which was often in the grounds of the Perth Zoological Gardens. The catering list for one of them will give an impression of their scale
35.000 pieces of fruit
1.000 gallons (4,564 1) of cordial
550 dozen bags of sweets
15.000 ice creams and iced confections
150 gals (682 1) of milk.
Trade and shipping had increased during the 1920s
... in 1924-25 cargo tonnage was just over double and shipping tonnage three times their respective levels in 1917-18...cargo tonnage handled per lineal yard of quay passed its prewar peak in 1925-26, when it reached 379 tons. Three years later it reached 545 tons, the highest level ever attained in the period (up to World War II). (Tull 1985, p.127)
By then the port was operating close to its sustainable maximum capacity (Tull 1985, p.121). There was a clear need to expand the harbour and there were three proposals: those of Buchanan (1927), Stileman (1927) and Gibb (1929).
The Commonwealth government had commissioned an eminent British
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consulting engineer, Sir George Buchanan, in the first half of 1925 to report on the accommodation for shipping and cargo at Australian ports ... and whether the accommodation at present available is utilised in the best possible manner, and to suggest any direction in which the present facilities could be amplified or extended,
and
to report on the methods of port administration and control, including finances, adopted by the various states...and on the methods adopted in handling the export trade in primary products, including wool and wheat, and to make any suggestions for handling such cargo more economically or more expeditiously by the installation of more up-to-date methods and appliances.
There were the usual problems of conflict between the Commonwealth and State governments. Buchanan became involved in a prolonged debate, through the pages of the press, with the Premier, Phil Collier. Buchanan declined, presumably because of professional ethics, to study Fremantle Harbour when he learnt that the Engineer-in-Chief of the Public Works Department, F. W. H. Stileman had reported in 1927. Indeed the state Cabinet had voted, on 12 October of that year, in favour of the plan which was described as 'masterly' and 'classic'. (Figs 23 and 24)
The Harbour Master and pilots of the Port of Fremantle opposed elements of the Stileman plan, including the gradual narrowing of the harbour from 426.7 m to 243. 8 m - the original design width on the
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FIGURE 23
The Stileman Scheme (d1927)
Le Page 1986, p. 396)
106
FIGURE 24 : Stileman Scheme superimposed on a photograph
(Le Page 1986, p. 397)
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O'Connor plan - in the proposed upstream extension; the proposed gradual reduction in depth from 10.97 m to 9.75 m; and the longer term proposals for extensions seaward and north of the harbour. Stileman had argued that a depth of 9.75 m would have accommodated 95 per cent of vessels at that time. The pilots rejected Stileman's plan for seawards extension, noting that modern mail boats are built up to 70 feet (21.3 m) above the water level and 'when knocked dead are like great bladders' requiring four tugs, and shore capstans if possible, to hold them. They believed that a sheltered up river harbour was essential for them (Tull 1985, p. 128).
The Fremantle Business Men's Association met on 7 December 1927 and J. F. Allen asked why no provision was made for bulk handling of wheat, and why there was no consideration of electrification of the metropolitan railways. He stated that the electric power house at East Perth had been constructed for this purpose. (Le Page 1986, pp 396-397)
The F. H. T. Commissioners sought an informal meeting beteen three of their representatives and Stileman. A public meeting, called on 23 May 1928 by Fremantle Municipal Council, passed a resolution calling for a Royal Commission. In July the Cabinet set up a committee to consider bulk handling of wheat.
Members of the Legislative Assembly criticised Stileman, and Mr A. Thompson, Leader of the Country Party, on 5 September moved for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into his scheme. The Minister for Works, McCallum who was also the Member for Fremantle, and one of the peacemakers on Bloody Sunday - defended Stileman vigorously.
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In doing so he compared Stileman's proposals with those which had now been made by Buchanan (McCallum 1928).*
- For a detailed discussion of all three plans see Tull (1985).
One objection to Stileman's plan was that it did not allow for enough extension upstream. He had proposed relocation of the rail and road bridges to Point Brown, allowing for an extension of the harbour by about 305 m, room for 11 more berths; whereas Buchanan proposed extension nearly to Blackwall Reach. He proposed a combined rail and road bridge at Blackwall Reach. Stileman's objections to further extension upstream were based on possible effects on tidal movements as far as Perth, uneconomical working of such an extended harbour, and the difficulty - due to grades and angles - of railway approaches. The two long wharfage spaces on either side of the river (nearly 5.6 km under the Buchanan plan) would be virtually two harbours, only accessible from one side or the other at the extreme end. Bridges in an intermediate location would have to be opening span bridges, or high level ones. Stileman rejected opening span bridges because they caused long delays for both ships and vehicles. A high level bridge would be very expensive. Sydney Harbour Bridge had cost about £M 9 ($M 18) - nearly one and a half times Buchanan's estimate of £M 6.74 ($M 13.48) for his harbour works. Stileman estimated that his upriver extensions would cost £M 3.2 ($M 6.4) but he had not estimated his proposals for seawards extension.
The F. H. T. Commissioners wanted to widen the inner basin to 426.7 m for its entire length, and to deepen this and the entrance channel
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to 10.97 m throughout. Stlleman had responded that less than 7 per cent of vessels entering the harbour drew 8.84 m or more, and less than one percent drew 9.14 m; and that the Commissioners' request was an unnecessary extravagance. Stileman proposed that the extension upstream would be 243.8 m to 274.3 m wide and 9.75 m deep; two thirds of the harbour would be wide and deep enough for larger vessels.
The extension northwards had been, McCallum said, 'inaccurately described as an outer harbour'.
... it is quite uncanny to read the arguments that were used at the time the present Fremantle Harbour was being constructed, arguments against the proposals that were then advanced, and compare them with the arguments that are being used at the present time against the extension to the north as suggested by Mr Stileman. ... At that time catastrophes were predicted and again today fear is expressed in a similar direction ... if, by the end of ten years we adopt the scheme of bulk handling, I think that by the time the up-river section is completed, we shall not want any further extensions for many years (McCallum 1928, p. 9).
McCallum was against southward extension; Stileman had not costed it but it was sure to be more expensive.
We cannot get to the south by the present channel; a new entrance would have to be made, and a new breakwater would have to be built ... a railway line cannot be brought around the town from the Fremantle wharf. Cliff-street is now feeding the wharf, and the result of that proposal would be absolutely to
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block Cliff-street. The only thinkable approach would be by way of Jandakot, coming in at the other end altogether. That would make two separate railway approaches to the port, one to the existing harbour, the other to the south side harbour. Thus there would be two distinct harbours, with the town dividing them ... as member for the district I wish to state that in my judgement the alternative scheme proposed would utterly spoil Fremantle as a seaside resort. Under that scheme Fremantle would be without any seafront at all, a mere mass of wharves and boats. Its attractions as a seaside resort would then be absolutely gone (McCallum 1928, p. 9).
These remarks of McCallum's must have been forgotten when the standard gauge railway line was extended south of Arthur Head; and they still appear relevant to the current debates about the wstablishment of a new port facility at Point Catherine and the extension of the electrified railway south to Rockingham.
McCallum attacked Buchanan's professional reputation trenchantly, even potentially libellously; his harbour proposals in other countries had proved deficient; he had been struck off the roll of the Engineers' Institute in England.
The government's antipathy to Buchanan appears to have arisen from the feeling that he spoke more about politics than about engineeering while in WA. Buchanan was critical of government interference in the running of the port and, in particular, its use as a 'tax-collecting organisation'. In a letter to the West Australian in April 1928, Buchanan claimed that the
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Premier's remark that 'it is for them (the FHT Commissioners) to administer the harbour as they find it, not to consider extension schemes', was a 'damning indictment' of port administration in W. A. (Tull 1985, p. 129)
Thomson's motion to set up a select committee was defeated. The government secured the adjournment of the debate. On the resumption of parliament on 12 September, the government announced that they would seek a highly qualified consulting engineer to confer with Stileman.
On the advice of the Agent-General in London, they engaged Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners. Their representative, P. Rustat, arrived on 12 February 1929 and stayed in the state for five weeks, reporting in July, almost entirely agreeing with Stileman's proposals. However, the report did recommend a depth of 10.97 m in the upstream extension, and a width of 274.3 m. It also recommended separate rail and road services and the construction of a passenger terminal on Victoria Quay and of bulk handling facilities for wheat on North Quay.
The 'Battle of the Plans' exemplifies the pre-war approach to port planning: the focus of attention was on structural excellence rather than economy; costing procedures were often rudimentary. This laxity of costing and investment procedures appears to have been a common feature of public investment in the early 20th century. (Tull 1985, p. 130)
A new government, with Sir James Mitchell as Premier, came to power on 23 April 1930. Mitchell claimed that there were no funds for public works; that the previous government had spent loan funds in advance. However, that argument was to be of less moment than the onset of the
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Depression.
The new government decided to combine the positions of Commissioner of Main Roads and Engineer-in-Chief of Public Works in a new position of Director of Works and Railways. Stileman, the potential appointee, and the Minister for Works disagreed over the salary; Edward Tindale was appointed and Stileman resigned (Le Page 1986, p. 199).
The depression years, although years of relative quietude in port development, were not devoid of change ... cargo handled per yard of quay averaged 490 tons during the 1930s, about 40 percent above the levels of the 1920s. This points to a gain in efficiency due partly to reorganisation and minor improvements to existing facilities. The FHT strived to make the best of what they had. But the gain in efficiency was mainly due to two technological innovations: the development of bulk oil and bulk grain handling. (Tull 1985, p. 131)
The railway system and the port had not been able to cope with the record grain crop of 1908-09. In those days grain was handled in bags. Bulk handling had been developed in the U.S.A. nearly fifty years before then and, in 1905, the Engineer-in-chief (who had examined the American methods) had recommended adoption of bulk handling, while acknowledging that ships had to be adapted for the purpose, and a considerable expenditure on machinery and siloes would be required. (Tull 1985, p. 131) The amount of throughput at Fremantle may have been too low to warrant such large capital investment and the FHT decided to improve facilities for bag handling. There were other valid reasons. (Tull 1985, p. 132) By the end of 1910 a large shed, equipped
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with five elevators for unloading bags from trucks, and conveyors for moving bags in the shed and for carrying them to ships, had been built on North Quay. This system worked quite well. The proposals for bulk handling of wheat, made before World War I, were set aside during that war. Expansion of the wheat industry during the 1920s and 1930s had been uneven. The area under crop increased after the setbacks of a major drought and World War I, mainly due to the Soldier Settlement Scheme and partly to the encouragement of assisted British immigration. Many of the British migrants took part in the ill-devised and badly administered Group settlement Scheme. The latter was mainly designed to develop dairy farms. Many of the new farmers settled under these schemes were forced of the land by the Depression. Reconstruction and consolidation of the wheat industry occurred in 1936 -1940, but by then World War II had broken out (Snooks 1981, p. 250).
In 1924, Westralian Farmers Ltd, experimented with bulk handling, partly loading one ship by that method. Nothing developed from this until, in the 1929-20 season, the firm discovered that vessels were available which would ship bulk wheat at lower rates than for bagged wheat. Two more vessels were loaded by bulk handling and considerable economies demonstrated. At the onset of the Depression there was a record crop of wheat in the 1930-31 season, but the farmers income was less than it had been in 1921; wheat bags were now a much more significant element of the cost of transport. In July 1931 the firm proposed to the government that bulk handling be adodpted; the firm to provide its own bulk installations at country sidings, the government
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to provide matching facilities at the harbour. The FHT installed temporary bulk handling equipment on North Quay and the firm installed wheat bins at five country sidings. In October of the following year the government introduced a bill to establish a trust to operate a bulk handling system; the trust to have a monopoly. The monopoly provision provoked strong opposition and the bill, despite some amendments, was defeated.
In 1933 Westralian Farmers and the Trustees of the Wheat Pool of W.A. formed a company called Co-operative Bulk Handing to establish a system. This new company obtained leases for storage bins at an additional 48 sidings and were prepared to build more. By then a new Labor government had been elected and it refused to grant any more leases until there had been an inquiry into bulk handling. Some sections the Labor party were fearful that bulk handling would lead to loss of jobs at the port, which could not be countenanced during the Depression. The government also 'had reservations about bulk handling being run by a monopoly outside of government cotrol' (Tull 1985, p. 134). Almost inevitably a Royal Commission was appointed and its report was presented in July 1935. This claimed that the output per man-hour would be approximately trebled by bulk handling. The construction of concrete silos as recommended, but construcution was delayed until after World War II. The government agreed to the recommendation that the new company be given a state wide monopoly of wheat marketing.
One spin-off from bulk handling was that by improving throughput per lineal yard of berth, It created about four
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surplus berths. This reduced the need for any major expenditure on harbour works prior to 1939. (Tull 1985, p. 134)
Because of the war virtually no work was done on either the Stileman or Gibb plans. The Harbour was given over partly to naval requirements during the war, British, Dutch and American submarines operating from there.*
- For security reasons the annual reports of the FHT say little about the work of the port during the war. There has been insufficient time during work on this study to consult papers in the Australian Archives Branch in Victoria Park. Additional information might be obtained from those Archives.
Works were undertaken during the war, largely for defence purposes. Construction of a new slipway at Arthur Head, to handle vessels up to 2,000 tonne, commenced in October 1940 and was completed by September.
1941. Control of this slipway, and of the old slipway at Rous Head, was transferred to the Public Works Department.
A boom defence system was erected across the entrance: a wire rope fence with a central gate. The gate was opened by a winch on the North Mole. Two buildings (designated Nos 11 and 12 in Part II) were erected at the west end of Victoria Quay for the naval unit operating the boom defence, and for maintenance of the boom and its machinery.
'H' Shed, at the easternmost end of the quay, and the adjacent wharf and roadway were taken over by the Defence Department in January.
1942. The Signal Station on Cantonment Hill was used by the Naval
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Department from May 1942 until June 1944 when a naval signal station was completed on top of a wheat silo on North Quay.
There was comparatively little effect on trade through the port up to mid 1940, although visits by warships, troopships and hospital ships caused extra pressure. From 18 to 20 January 1940, the first Australian and New Zealand troop convoy was in Fremanatle, consisting of passenger liners that had been frequent visitors to the port in peace time: the Strathaird, Strathnaver, Orford, Orion, Orcades, and Otranto, as well as the Empress of Japan and the Empress of Canada.
On 10 May a 'very famous convoy' arrived, including nearly all the greatest passenger liners: Queen Mary, Aquitania, Empress of Britain, Empress of Canada, Mauretania, Andes, and Empress of Japan. The largest of these, the first two, had to remain in Gage Roads.
The boom defence, construction of which began just before the outbreak of the war, was in operation by December of that year.
The first convoy of American troops arrived on 18 February 1942, and in March, following the fall of Singpore, accommodation in the harbour was taxed by the arrival of vessels crammed with refugees. At one time as many as 30 ships were waiting in Gage Roads for a berth to become available.
In that month an American anti-aircraft regiment etablished gun-posts in and around the harbour. Three months later they were relieved by Australian Army units.
The U.S. Navy established a depot at Fremantle, 'working all U.S. vssels around the clock'. The lumpers on being exhorted to increase their efforts, responded very
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creditably, although they were faced with the position that with the younger members having joined the armed forces ... the brunt of the waterside work fell upon nearly all the older men. (FHT 1945)
Work on constructing the new slipway at Arthur Head was speeded up. The U.S. Navy provided extra manpower and the Commonwealth Government provided funds through the Department of the Navy. The Chungking wa the first vessel to be slipped, on 22 September 1942. After that the slipway was almost monopolised by U.S. vessels. During the year, as well as later, the Harbour was extensively used for the repair of merchant vessels which had been damaged by enemy action or which had broken down after long periods of service. Fortunately the port experienced no enemy action directly.
The first 'Liberty ship' berthed on 3 January 1943. By the 30 June of that year over 200 of these war-time vessels had berthed. On 3 March 1944, the U.S. Navy floating dock A.R.D 10 arrived and was accommodated between numbers 2 and 3 mooring buoys.
On 5 September of that year Royal Navy depot ships arrived, with several R. N. submarines, to establish a British submarine base. The Royal Netherlands Navy also based submarines at Fremantle from which a very powerful submarine force was then operating. On 4 February 1945 a large and powerful section of the Royal Navy, including the battleship King George V, the aircraft carriers Indomitable, Illustrious, Victoria and Indefatigable, with the cruisers Argonautand Euralus and 11 destroyers, arrived.
The centre of wartime activity then moved further away from
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Fremantle. When the war ended in 1945, the Fremantle Harbour Trust, along with the rest of the community, had to take stock and plan to catch up for lost development time. No doubt the Commissioners had also observed the machines used by the U.S. Navy.
The Americans brought a number of innovations here during the war. They worked in conjunction with our fellows on their cargo and they had their own fork lifts. We didn't have any. (Stewart 1976, p. 11)
The first task in the post-war years, while major developments were planned, would be to improve the efficiency of the port with more mechanisation.
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2.3 : 1946 - 1955 : Modernisation
The principal cause of economic prosperity in these postwar years up to 1950-51 was the remarkable growth of the primary sector. The progress of the primary sector was largely recorded in two areas, wheat and wool, In terms of both production and value (Ghosh 1981, p. 270).
The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 triggered off a major boom in the price of wool. However,
the collapse of the economic boom created by the Korean War and favourable export prices led to a sharp decline in farm incomes in Western Australia in 1954-55 from which the economy did not recover fully until the early 1960s (Ghosh 1981, p. 273).
Almost no new work on Victoria Quay was reported in the five years immediately after the war, apart from the erection of a new wharf fire station opposite 'F' Shed in 1948/49.
In 1947 Fremantle Harbour celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the entry of the Sultan into the inner harbour; for that period O'Connor's plan had served remarkably well. Work on repiling the rest of Victoria Quay had been completed. Berths 1 to 3 on North Quay were reconstructed by late 1951. In its annual report for 1946 the Public Works Department had announced the engagement of a consulting engineer, F. W. E. Tydeman, to work on development of Fremantle Harbour. His report was published in August 1948, and released in March 1949.
Tydeman's brief had not included operation of the harbour, only its layout and structures. He had made it clear that it was impossible to
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plan improvements or extensions without taking operations into consideration also. Most of the issues raised in the Tydeman report are those which have recurred throughout the history of the harbour: upstream extension or an outer harbour; cross-river communication; the effect of upstream extension on Perth water levels; the need or otherwise for a graving dock. It is notable that effects on the environment or on the planning and commercial activity of the town of Fremantle were raised mainly only at the political level: even as late as the Tydeman report such matters were not included in the briefs of consulting engineers.
Tydeman proposed works in five stages:
1. Immediate improvement of existing facilities.
2. A new railway yards at Leighton Beach; improvements to transit sheds; upgrading of railways serving North Quay so that more general cargo could be handled there; erection of multi-storey transit sheds on Victoria Quay; and additional berths on North quay.
3. Resiting of the bridges upstream to Point Brown, allowing upstream extension of the harbour.
4. Seaward extension on the north side.
5. Seaward extension on the south side. (Tydeman 1948)
It is interesting that Tydeman did not propose extension of the harbour further southwards into Cockburn Sound; his brief, even if it did not require such consideration, may not have excluded it.
Tydeman favoured the southern site chosen by Napier Bell for the dry-dock but decided that a dock would be too expensive and would require
Figs 25 and 26 go here, unpaginated.
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subsidy to maintain; it was not yet essential for Fremantle and that it 'might prove wise to defer the decision of installation of a dry dock for a few years' until the economic situation had improved. By then a suitable upriver site should be available.
He concluded that bridges or tunnels downstream might become necessary because of increased traffic generated by 'the highly populated and industrial zones' which would ultimately develop in the large adjacent area of town land.
Tydeman was appointed General Manager of the Fremantle Harbour Trust in 1950 and held that position with distinction until 1963. He began immediately a programme of mechanisation, including the purchase of two fork-lift trucks. (FHT 1950)
Fremantle was not behindhand in introducing mechanisation. Tydeman explained in an interview that many of the machines now used in ports were not available before World War II. The Port of London did not have fork-lift trucks when Tydeman visited it in 1950/51,
It meant that in this regard Fremantle was highly mechananised before the rest of Australia had woken up in that regard. (Tydeman 1983, pp. 1-2)
In the interview quoted Tydeman makes a number of comments on the history of the harbour which, at the risk of diverting from the main stream of this study at this point, are of interest. On the unusual practice, that the Fremantle Harbour Trust accepted responsibility for cargo handling, he said that this may have partly come about because the Act of Parliament which set up the Trust was based on legislation for the Port of Wellington in New Zealand which, in turn, was based
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on Liverpool.
In Liverpool, right back in the old days, a ship comes in with cargo and in Liverpool, although the ship's crew did the unloading, very often I suppose they could have got paid off. So they had a system there where they had gangs ashore who'd say we'll discharge the cargo for a lump sum. Now they were called lumpers. The only place in the world where the word was used and that was passed to Wellington where it was used, who in turn passed it to Fremantle. (Tydeman 1983, p. 4)
Tydeman, it is evident from this interview, was sure of his own abilities, and somewhat biassed in his attitudes to the Fremantle lumpers, and rather blinkered in his views.
If I should say Australia is unique in as much as the labour is a damn nuisance here, when you have to employ it, in the respect that they won't cooperate in Australia. They don't even think in terras of loyalty to the country, God knows what Australia would do if it got attacked here, everybody would go on strike. You see I come from Britain which I hold in high regard - I'm an Australian citizen now. But there they had a deep-rooted sense of loyalty which went right back to the feudal times and its always accepted. Just take World War I and the aristocracy, Lord this and Lord ... all took up positions of command in the army and navy, they were trained for it and the whole populace followed them - feudal system. Right behind them, risk their life, anything. You wouldn't get that in Australia and I merely mention it because that's the
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hierarchy. But lower down in Britain it's the same sense of loyalty, which you haven't got here and there's not one working man in Fremantle who has got a penn'orth of loyalty for the employer or for the State or for the environs they live in, which is one of Australia's tragedies.(Tydeman 1983, p. 4)
He went on to complain about the difficulties he confronted from unions when he began to introduce mechanisation. It is no wonder that men who had been through the Depression and the recent war would have been concerned about the effect of mechanisation on their jobs. Tydeman shows no signs of having attempted to negotiate with the unions in such a way that they might have been led to accept mechanism at a reasonable rate.
When Tydeman took over management of the harbour there were still backlogs created by disruption of shipping during the war, the shortage of ships, the shortage of the right types of ships, rundown road and rail services, and so on. Ships, up to 25 at a time, might be waiting in Gage Roads in what came to be known as the 'Rottnest queue'.
It was at that stage that the government came to me and said for God's sake can you straighten it out. Well I said I'll have a go at it. It's my job and I've been used to doing that sort of thing. So that was the type of problem that had to be met and you have got to remember this that all the ships outside you hadn't got enough room to bring them in. In those days Victoria Quay had 5 or 6 usable berths. I think the
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numbers are stated in my report and the north side of the harbour wasn't used at all in those day except for bagged wheat handling. There was another problem that - a quaint sort of difficulty - the Port Authority employed the labour on the shore side, but the labour on the ships was not controlled by the Port; they were controlled by ... and the Stevedoring Industry. (Tydeman 1983, pp. 6-7)
There can be little doubt that this was a system designed to encourage delays and to delay the acceptance of change by the unionists. The harbour was far less efficient than it might have been. The working conditions on the waterfront were still far from acceptable, and the unions did adapt, even if more slowly than Tydeman wanted.
On the waterfront containerisation and mechanisation have transformed a job which was labour intensive and which relied on back breaking toil into a job which involves very few workers and heavy machinery - portainer cranes, heavy forklifts -and considerable responsibility. The industry has declined from 28,000 waterside workers at its peak in the 1950s to 5,000 waterside workers, in a total work force, including tradesmen and clerical workers and supervisory staff of about 8,000 to 9,000. It was this decline wich forced the Waterside Workers Federation to come to grips with the issue of industry unionism, of organising workers based on the industry rather than based on the craft or the particular skills of one section of the workforce ... One of the most far-sighted trade unionists was Paddy Troy, the Secretary of the Maritime
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Workers Union in Fremantle. Long before the Seamen's Union or the Waterside Workers Federation embarked on a path of industry unionism and amalgamation, Paddy was pursuing the objective of one union in the industry, based on the Waterside Workers Federation ... Waterside workers have been in the forefront of the struggle to remove the harsh and oppressive conditions of the Bull system and to achieve human dignity and union rights at the workplace. (Griffiths 1989, p. 46) *
- The number of registered waterside workers in Fremantle fell from about 2,000 in the 1950s to 440 in 1986. This must have had a very signficant effect on the nature of the Fremantle community and deserves a separate study.
Reconstruction of berths is very difficult in a working harbour, as Tydeman explains in the interview, especially when the harbour has a backlog to overcome. Tydeman seems to have been contemptuous of others.
I went to great lengths to explain how a port works. No-one had the slightest idea. I might give you an idea on that particular aspect if you are interested in ports. I started to work just after World War in one of the biggest firms in the world on ports and port design and operation. The thing that puzzled me right from the word go was why is a port designed as it is. So that I asked all the leading port people in the world why is it so and I could never get an answer. (Tydeman 1983, p. 8)
It is revealed in this interview that Tydeman was opposed to
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extension into the Outer Harbour.
I told them that the O. H. was always a potential of a sort. It's a potential in the sense that it's a partly protected zone. You must have protective waters for ships. But it's what I call secondary protection. Now to bring ships alongside the wharf you have got to have primary protection only. You've got to have better protection so they can lie in ... It's limited potential. Want to have a lot of money spent on it. And even now they're talking in respect of the Inner Harbour. The Port Authority, since I've left them, have decided on some plan of the rebuilding of the port down at Rockingham. Well now I'll tell you the difficulties there. To me that's absolutely retrograde and damn stupid. I'll tell you why, I could give you some examples. What they are doing is decentralising the port. They are building a new port 20 miles from ... I've seen it done in London, Adelaide, I've seen it done all over the world. For some reason development takes place all around your port and you can't move so let's go away. Right, to go right down there you've got to go through six miles of narrow channel which at any time some silly bugger could sink a ... in it and you're out of commission for 2 or 3 years .... There is all that and all your labour is decentralised. Your labour here, you won't have labour living down there, you'll have to move your labour down there and back all those miles ... And another very important point is a vital point in a port, is to be able to get your ships in and out easily and readily and
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quickly. In other words you have to have the deepwater available right up to your port doorstep. So that once a ship leaves its berth it can go straight out into the deepwater ... no channels, no difficulty at all ... to go and split up a port like this is retrograde. Now what they should do is to extend each side of the breakwaters into the sea towards the deep water and build up your land around your breakwaters. And take your whole port out more towards the sea. (Tydeman 1983, pp. 15-16)
This is what Tydeman had strongly advocated in his 1948 report.
If port development takes place upstream, existing rail and road bridges must be re-sited further upstream. In consequence there will be an even greater extent of intensified township area downstream on both river banks, requiring direct cross-river communications for the greater traffic involved; more high level bridges or tunnels ... The problem to posterity of virtually insoluble difficulties of bridges high enough to pass increasingly large ships beneath, or tunnels deep enough to allow gradually deeper navigable dredged depths of water, will thus be intensified by upriver development.
If port development takes place seaward away from existing township areas, the bridges will remain sited as they are and cross-river communication problems will remain, but in less concentrated form initially than for upstream.
However,
The existing rail river crossing is too close to the berths...
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re-siting to near the existing traffic bridge would only improve rail approaches partially, and though it would open up the best up-river dry dock site and permit limited upstream berth expansion, it would not impiove port rail operating efficiency sufficiently to justify the costs involved.
He, therefore, came down in favour of re-siting both bridges upstream to Point Brown, which would also allow for the acquisition of more land by resumption or reclamation. He did not think that either upstream or seaward extensions would have any deleterious effect on water levels upstream. If the bridges were re-sited as recommended, there would be an upper limit of about 30 berths in the Inner Harbour.
He seems not to have known of, or to have ignored, McCallum's concern for the town when Stileman proposed seaward berths south of Arthur Head.
Development seawards suffers from no restriction of land, would cause lesser problems of cross-river communications, and impose no restriction on the number of berths possible. It thus offers to posterity an area of unlimited port expansion for all time. From the engineering and navigable standpoints seawards development schemes are possible.
Development seawards of the port, unrestricted in the matter of land area, will be more to the advantage of town planners than upstream development in congested and developed areas, and where land resumption and considerable changes would have to take place.
His seaward proposal would, in fact, have consumed the Esplanade
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and, it appears, the remainder of Arthur Head, including the Round House (Figure 25). He also appears to have ignored the impact of potentially greatly increased traffic through the West End.
Once again the government seems not to have been prepared to accept the recommendations of a consultant, whom it had appointed, without independent assessment. H. C. Meyer, Commissioner and General Manager of the South Australian Harbours Board, was commissioned to 'examine into and to report on certain phases of the Tydeman Plan' (FHT 1951). Tydeman visited England from 12 February to 12 April 1950 to engage engineering consultants. As a consequence, the government entered into an agreement with Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners. A party of engineers and surveyors from that firm arrived in June.
The reports of these consultants tended to agree with Tydeman in general and to differ only in particulars: these engineering details will not be considered here, but the debates in Parliament offer insights into the political issues, as well as indicating the particular differences of view between Tydeman and the consultants.
The Member for Fremantle, the Hon. J. B. Sleeman, spoke at great length on 5 and 19 September 1951 (Parl. Deb., Sept 1951) in support of his motion
that this House requests the Government to go on with the outward to the south scheme instead of the upriver scheme that it has adopted.
In support he cited Tydeman's reference to 'insoluble difficulties' that would be left to posterity by upriver extension (including river crossings); that expansion seawards was the most rational
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alternative and provided unlimited space for expansion; that seaward expansion was 'more to the advantage of town planning'; that extension upriver made the port more vulnerable to a major shipping disaster, such as a tanker fire;* that upriver schemes had insufficent land backing them; that upstream development would be more expensive; and that Meyer had warned that upriver extension would require 'special precautions against... physical pollution finding its way into Freshwater Bay'.
- In early 1943 a cargo vessel, the Panamanian was destroyed by fire in the inner harbour.
Wheareas McCallum had been concerned about the effect of seaward expansion on the town, Sleeman showed more concern for the river
Firstly we should not destroy our beautiful Swan River. We have a wonderful heritage in that river and we have the right to hand it on to posterity in the manner in which we received it and as it is today.
He had a vision of the 'magnificent harbour' that could be made by outward expansion.
One has only to stand on my verandah, when there is even a mild sea running, to note the line of sandbanks, reefs and islands which practically surround what would be our harbour.
He seems to have forgotten the experience of the first arrivals in 1929, who found Gage Roads inadequately sheltered from winter storms.
He cited Tydeman's desiderata for a site for extensions: proximity to the existing trade centre of Fremantle; good road and rail access;
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ample land for port development; safe ship navigation and entry; shelter from north westerly seas and southern swells; freedom from silt or sand drift; and provision for maintaining the river flow, especially during flooding. He, like Tydeman, was particularly concerned that upriver extension would remove the bridges far from the centre of the town and port. It was feared that, later, major engineering works, such as lifting span bridges or tunnels, would be required. A particular objection to resiting bridges at that time was an international steel shortage - due to the backlogs caused by the war, the pressing need for reconstruction of war-damaged towns and structures, and re-armament because of the Cold War and the Korean War.
Tydeman had also stated that seaward extension would increase the protection of the inner harbour from the
westerly swell created by the six mile fetch from the reefs, and ... north-west heavy waves deflected round the end of the main breakwater, which make a clear run up the inner harbour entrance and , by deflection again, up the main inner channel. This swell has the effect of preventing usage of berths A and B ... for about two months of the year. (Tydeman 1948, Vol. 2, p. 56)
Sleeman was opposed to upriver extension also because of the required land resumption in the surrounding township and commercial areas. He listed all the houses in North Fremantle that could have been affected.
There are over 300 houses affected and, in addition, a large portion of the shopping centre of North Fremantle. There are
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also a number of industries which will need to be transferred, and the persons running those industries will have to be compensated. I have given the picture only as it affects North Fremantle, but there are a number of valuable properties in Fremantle itself which must be affected...(Parl. Deb., Sept 1951, p. 538).*
- Although only limited expansion took place upriver eventually and the bridges, were not relocated so far upstream, the approaches for the new bridges caused the loss of houses. Details require a further study.
Sleeman's motion was defeated; the government's decision in favour of upstream development stood.
When Tydeman was appointed General Manager of the FHT in 1950 he 'immediately embarked on a programme of mechanisation, including purchase of two fork-lift trucks' (FHT 1950). Work also began on developing North Quay for handling general cargo. In 1951/52 construction of a modern mechanical workshop was commenced as well as 'improved accommodation for other maintenance sections' (FHT 1952). The mechanisation programme was completed by 1953.
In August 1951, the Minister of Works, David Brand, announced that the construction of a new berth, No. 10, at the east end of North Quay would go ahead. However, because of the shortage of funds, work was restricted to removing buildings from the site and manufacturing concrete elements of the structure.
At this time proposals were announced for an oil refinery and steel
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rolling mills at Kwinana, which would involve the deepening of channels through Success and Parmelia Banks, and the construction of new berthing jetties on the shore of the Sound (FHT 1953). Since this would involve a major shift in port planning, the government appointed the Coordinator of Works and Industrial Development, R. J. Dumas, and a private engineer, D. W. Brisbane, as a committee to review overall planning for harbours, railways and roads following development in Cockburn Sound.
The Dumas-Brisbane report was handed to the government early in 1954. Soon afterwards, the government decided in favour of additional berths upriver as far as the existing road bridge. Relocation of the rail bridge was deferred.
At this time, as part of Tydeman's overall planning for the Inner Harbour, construction of Port Beach Road was in hand. The breakwind wall was demolished and the material used in the construction of the road.
During 1953/54
an arrangement was made whereby unsatisfactory aspects of boundaries and various ownership of land within the port area and contiguously were eliminated. Most of the land (excluding small parcels of Commonwealth owned land) has now been placed in the hands of the Trust to the betterment of all concerned, (FHT 1954)*
- See Appendix IV.
Within a few years, as the new mineral boom began to take effect,
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funds would again become available for major public works.
In 1955 the FHT reported that work was concentrating on the new channels through the banks and on construction of the oil refinery and steel mill jetties. A new era had begun for the port, and for a while, the focus shifted to the Outer Harbour.
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CHAPTER 3 : 1956 - 1989
OUTER HARBOUR AND RECENT INNER HARBOUR DEVELOPMENTS
In this period, at least until the mid-70s, economic growth accelerated, and a period of relative affluence was enjoyed by Western Australians. 'Household income* in the State grew at an average annual rate of 11.8% in the 28 years from 1948/49 to 1975/76, compared to a national average of 10.6% (Ghosh 1981, p. 275). For nearly the first half of this period - until 1964/65 - the rate of growth was 'about the same as the national level'. For the latter half the rate was 'consistently and substantially higher than at the national level' (Ghosh 1981, p. 276). Per capita income, at 1966/67 prices, rose sharply for a few years after the war, peaking in 1951. It then fell steeply to be at 1948/49 levels again by 1952/53, and remained stagnant for seven years.
Since then the per capita real income has been increasing slowly at first and then rapidly with the emergence of the mining boom of the 1960s. (Ghosh 1981, p. 278)
A recession led to a decline in mining activity, especially iron ore, after 1973. However the high rate of growth of household incomes, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1960s, when seen in
historical perspective ... may with some aptness be described as an 'economic miracle' - a label which is frequently used to underline the dramatic growth of Japanese economy in recent years. (Ghosh 1981, p. 280)
So, once again, a mineral boom triggered port development which, in the period 1959-72, 'rivalled the great leap which occurred in the
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1890s' (Le Page 1986, p. 531). However this development largely occurred in the Outer Harbour of Fremantle, in existing southern ports, and in new northern ports required for iron export.
Wagner sees this period divided into two sub-periods: 1956-70 and 1971-present. During the former the dredging of deep access channels through Parmelia and Success Banks 'enlarged the area sheltered by the islands lying to the west' (Wagner 1988, p. 35) and Cockburn Sound by the creation of a series of specialised terminals was transformed into the Outer Harbour. The Inner and Outer Harbours, although administered by the single Port Authority, served distinct purposes. Accordingly the Inner Harbour was re-equipped with the latest in port technology. (Wagner 1988, p. 33)
The specialised terminals in the Outer Harbour were jetties built out into deep water to handle 'mass commodities' (Wagner 1988, p. 35). The 'latest in port technology' in the Inner Harbour included further mechanisation, improved methods of bulk handling grain, containerisation, and modification of berths for 'Roll on - Roll off' ships. Most of these developments occurred on North Quay, or in the Outer Harbour.
Because of the development of the Outer Harbour, most of the major developments of the Inner Harbour, proposed by Tydeman, did not proceed or were only partly completed. Effectively Stages 1 and 2 (see p. 120) were completed although, apart from the new passenger terminal, multi-storey transit sheds were not built on Victoria Quay.
If the other three stages had been completed the town of Fremantle
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would have been changed dramatically (see Figures 26 and 27). Arthur Head, the Round House and the Esplanade would have been lost and the historic West End would have become almost a peninsula surrounded by docks, roads and railway lines and yards. If the bridges had been relocated to Point Brown much of the North Fremantle residential area would have been replaced by road and rail approaches. On the other side of the river, part of the residential area of East Fremantle would also have been affected severely.
Victoria Quay, however, remains the main focus of this study. Perhaps the most dramatic effect on Victoria Quay during the period was the volume of post-war immigration. For example,
During the period 1966-71 the population of the Perth Metropolitan area increased by about 144 000; 17.0 per cent of this absolute increase was due to interstate migration, 28.8 per cent to natural increase ... and 54.1 per cent due to international migration. (Ghosh 1981, p. 289)
Again, it is beyond the scope of this study to explore the impact of immigration in detail. However, in the period referred to by Ghosh, a fair proportion of the interstate immigrants, and probably nearly all of the international immigrants would have arrived in the State at Fremantle harbour. During the period a new, specialised passenger terminal was built on Victoria Quay, which remains the principal focus of this study. The subsequent recession and the rise of air transport would see a dramatic collapse of the passenger trade, with important consequences for Victoria Quay and for the town of Fremantle.
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As well as the large volume of immigrants, many Western Australians sailed from the Harbour, largely as tourists to Europe. The following table is reproduced from Wagner (1988, p. 183):
Table 1: Port of Fremantle - Passenger traffic. Fremantle Port Authority Western Australia Annual Reports 1980-1981 1984-1985
The period to 1970 was also a time when
the facilities of both harbours received an increasing degree of utilisation...(Wagner 1988, p. 35)
The second period, 1971 to present, saw further improvement of Outer Harbour facilities. The limits of the Outer Harbour were defined (Fig. 28). In the Inner Harbour some berths were modified for Roll on - Roll off traffic, and other areas were converted to handle cargo containers, requiring the installation of specialised handling equipment, and areas for storing containers.
In spite of the decline in passenger traffic, the Inner Harbour could be regarded as working at full capacity, thanks in particular to excellent road and rail links with the hinterland. (Wagner 1988, p. 36)
Works on the Inner Harbour, on Victoria Quay in particular, will be
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FIGURE 28 Boundaries of the Outer Harbour
(Wagner 1988)
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considered in the two periods defined by Wagner.
3.1 : 1956 - 1970 : Partial implementation of Tydeman Plan
Virtually nothing had been done to implement the Stileman Plan of 1927, or the review of it in 1929 by Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners, due mainly to the Depression and the War; and implementation of the Tydeman Plan had been delayed because of lack of funds and because of the call for further assessments of it. The decision to develop the Outer Harbour made much of this Plan redundant.
As economic conditions eased, in the years leading to the boom, work began to catch up on arrears of maintenance on Victoria Quay, starting at 'C' Shed. This work, proceeding eastward to 'F' Shed took several years.
Shipping companies, foreseeing a revival of tourism and large-scale post war migration, and needing to rebuild fleets because of wartime losses or the age of pre-war vessels, announced plans for new, larger passenger liners. The P & O and Orient lines were planning vessels of about 40,000 tonne carrying about 2,000 passengers. In readiness for these vessels the FHT announced plans to build a new passenger terminal at 'F' and 'G' Berths, and work began to deepen and widen the entrance channel.
In 1936/57 the construction of No 10 Berth on North Quay (Figure 29) was completed, but unexpected rock on the river bed was delaying dredging to planned depth near the berth. In the following year construction of the first stage of the passenger terminal, at 'F' Berth began.
In 1958/59, the long deferred Stage 2 of the Tydeman Plan was
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FIGURE 29
Modified upriver expansion of the Inner Harbour (Port of Fremantle Quarterly, vol 2, Autumn 1967, p. 20
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finally started with the commencement of the new railway yards at Leighton Beach. The new sidings, arrival and marshalling yards, and the link to the main line at Cottesloe were completed, and the new yards in operation by 1960/61.
Alternative access to North Quay from the north was provided with the completion of Port Beach Road in the same year.
Relatively minor works, completed in 1958/59, Included two new slipways on the south side, one capable of taking vessels up to 620 tonne; the other, mainly for pilot boats, had a capacity of up to 103 tonne.
Stage 1 of the new Passenger Terminal was opened on 12 December 1960 by the Premier, Sir David Brand, when the P. & O. liner, Iberia, berthed. Eleven days later an Orient liner, the Oriana, (42.600 tonne) arived. Stage 2 was already under construction; it was commissioned on 11 May 1962 by the Premier. Two ships berthed simultaneously at the new terminal on that date: Fairsky at 'F' and Castel Felice at 'G'. The new terminal was considered to be the most modern in Australia; it had a total berthing length of 414 m, and it could accommodate a vessel of 45,720 tonne and one of 30,500 tonne simultaneously. Passengers and sightseers were provided for on the upper level. There was a promenade deck, 319 m long, at this level, with a general observation area of 111.5 m at each end which could be used as heliports. In 1965/66 a total of 210,516 passengers used the terminal; within 11 years the total was less than a quarter of that, and by 1986 only 4.760 passengers passed through it (see Table p. 138).
The Leighton Railway yards are also now out of use. Their story,
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and that of the passenger terminal, show that forecasting demand on port and ancillary facilities is sometimes chancy.
During 1960/61 construction of the new railway bridge began, and the site of ' J' Berth was surveyed. Four years later the superstructure of the old bridge was removed; this allowed work on the new berth to start , and completion of the small craft harbour upriver of the site of 'J' (Figure 29). Spoil removed by dredging for 'J' Berth was used to prepare the site of No. 12 berth, for container vessels, on North Quay. It was completed, ahead of schedule, in 1967/68. This berth had a specially strong structure of steel and concrete to take a 45.7 tonne fast-operating gantry crane. The container vessel, s.s. Encounter Bay berthed at the new terminal on 29 March 1969.
In the same year, reconstruction of 'H' Berth on Victoria Quay was completed, and work began on upgrading workers' amenities on Victoria Quay.
The old FHT Offices were demolished in December 1961, making way for the new 11-storey Administrative Block which was opened on 5 March 1964. The Signal Station was relocated from Cantonment Hill to the top of the new building. Soon afterwards, on 27 November of that year, the Fremantle Harbour Trust was renamed the Fremantle Port Authority.
In 1966 a further 0.81 hectare of Arthur Head was levelled. A large quantity of limestone excavated from there was use in the construcion of 'J' Berth. The levelled area was temporarily used for timber storage but, it was thought, might eventually be used as part of the area required for a major new entrance to Victoria Quay.
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FIGURE 30
East end of Victoria Quay, 1968
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In 1962/63, following announcement of plans to build a standard gauge railway line to Fremantle, and beyond to South Fremantle, the government set up a committee, chaired by the Town Planning Commissioner, to investigage the possibility of the FHT acquiring more land behind Victoria Quay by transfer from the Railways. The Trust had been involved in negotiations with the Railways for several years.
Tydeman retired in 1965. His fifteen years as General Manager had been
a period of unprecedented expansion...mainly along the lines of his report... (and) Fremantle has become one of the most highly mechanised ports in the world.(Port of Fremantle, Oct. 1963, p. 2)
North Wharf had been developed with new berths and over 120 acres (48.6 hectare) of new land 'created from waste sand dunes' for berth usage and ancillary port industries. Port Beach Road had been built to open access to North Wharf, resulting in the beaches being opened to the public. The Trust had built public amenities at these beaches. The entrance to the Inner Harbour had been deepened, widened and 'bell-mouthed' to accommodate larger vessels, and channels had been dredged through Success and Parmelia Banks for access to the Outer Harbour. The new grain silo on North Quay, and the new Passenger Terminal and new Administrative Building on Victoria Quay, had been completed. Following the removal of the old railway bridge, construction of five new upriver berths had begun.
Modernisation of the port had led to a rapid fall in the number of waterside workers (See footnote, p. 125), and probably to marked
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changes in the commerce and the community of Fremantle.
By the end of this period, apart from reorganisation of internal roads in the next period, Victoria Quay had virtually reached its present stage of development (Figure 31).
3.2 : 1971 - 1989 : Recent developments
During 1971/72 the railway marshalling yards at South Fremantle were opened, so that rail yards backing Victoria Quay became redundant and were cleared of lines and equipment, pending transfer to the FPA. In the following year, construction of Stage 1 of the new entrance road at Cliff Street and internal roads began, partly using the former railway land. An internal road of four lanes, with ample adjacent parking, was then extended along Victoria Quay. As part of this development, the Cliff Street entrance was redesigned; the old No 1 Gate was demolished and a new Gate built, and a landscaped forecourt was constructed in front of the new Administrative Building. In 1974/75 the statue of C. Y. O'Connor was relocated in this forecourt, placed so that the image of the Inner Harbour's designer can contemplate his great work as it is, substantially as he designed it, despite developments.
Only minor works were carried out on Victoria Quay from this date, but there were two substantial developments in or adjacent to the Inner Harbour. In preparation for the America's Cup races in 1986, Challenger Harbour (Figure 31) was constructed between the Fishing Boat Harbour and Bathers Beach. The pile remnants of the Long Jetty close to Bather's Beach were threatened by construction of the new breakwater, but its design was altered so that some evidence of the
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FIGURE 31 Inner Harbour, 1987 (Wagner 1988, p. 169)
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Long Jetty, the first major public work following the introduction of representative government in the colony, remains.
In 1988 the FPA proposed dredging the Inner Harbour, deepening it by about 2 m to approximately 13 m. It was a sign of developments in community attitudes that this work required investigation by the Environmental Protection Authority before it proceeded. Spoil from the dredging was used to reclaim an area of about 27 hectares north of North Mole, to be used as a new industrial estate. A small boat harbour, 14 hectares in area and with a capacity for 150 small vessels, was constructed adjacent to the reclamation, not far from the protected basin proposed by Browne In 1875. The entrance to the new small boat harbour was cut through North Mole.
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CONCLUSION
It is apparent that the physical form, as well as the social, commercial and industrial nature, of Fremantle have been strongly affected, if not fully determined, by development of the port, especially the inner harbour. The seaways, the coast and the river-mouth at Fremantle did not make an ideal site for a safe, all-weather harbour. The choice of Fremantle as the principal port of the State resulted from early administrative decisions, such as the selection of the site for the capital, Perth, as well as from some geographic factors - such as the banks which restricted entrance to Cockburn Sound - which were more persuasive in the early than the later periods. Subsequent political decisions, upon which Sir James Forrest had great influence, confirmed this choice. The city of Fremantle is now vulnerable to the consequences of any decisions - engineering, economic, or political - on future development of the harbour. Any decision to close down Victoria Quay and to open it for other developments will have, for good or ill, significant effects on the town.
This study has pointed to previous decisions which have affected the commerce and community of Fremantle: the siting of the jetties, the siting of the Inner Harbour; the relocation of the railway workshops; and subsequent developments of the harbour, including mechanisation, and its associated roads and railways. Unforeseen trends, such as the rapid decline in passenger traffic, also had marked effects on the life and trade of the town. Before Victoria Quay is opened for development more detailed studies of some of these issues may prove instructive. Studies are suggested of the demographic and
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economic effects - and, possibly the effects on heritage buildings and areas of
i. the re-location of the railway workshops
ii. the mechanisation of the harbour and the rapid decline in the number of waterside workers;
iii. the decline of passenger traffic;
iv. the re-location of roads and railways.
Because of the limited time and resources available for this study, other studies also are required. A study of the acquisition of land by the FHT or FPA would determine if any conditions were placed on the titles if the land ceased to be used for port purposes. A more detailed study of changes in road and rail layout in the land backing Victoria Quay is also necessary. Historical archaeology may reveal sites of earlier structures if any areas are scheduled to be cleared during development of the land contained within the FHT boundaries.
In particular the changes in the west end cf Victoria Quay, roughly the land west of Cliff Street, need to be better documented. Many of the buildings sited in this area were temporary or minor structures and may not have been accurately recorded. This study has not documented all these changes, due to lack of time. Since this area may be the first to be released for development, this study may be the most urgently needed.
Heritage statments are included in Part II of this study. However, some assessment of the heritage value of Victoria Quay is appropriate here.
The development of the Inner Harbour was largely due to the genius
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of C. Y. O'Connor. Given also his work on other major projects, such as railways and the Goldfields Water Supply, it can be claimed that no other engineer has made such a large personal contribution to the development of the State. Literally he gave his life to these works; committing suicide because of the stress due to overwork and savage criticism. Victoria Quay is a valuable part of the State's engineering and maritime heritage and a monument to the work of O'Connor.
It is a major part of the State's maritime heritage, being the place where vital cargoes were landed or loaded; where thousands of immigrants - including those who came during the gold rushes - first set foot in Australia; where thousands of tourists arrived or departed; and where troops left, some not to return, during several wars. It is also the workplace of the waterside workers who have been a vital element of the life of Fremantle. It has been the source of most of the commerce and industry of Fremantle, and played a major part in determining the present form of the West End of the city. These matters will be taken up in more detail in Part II.
There has often been too little regard for the effects of harbour developments on the city of Fremantle. Alex McCallum's stand, when the Stileman Plan was being discussed, is an early and rare exception.
In future there should be much better integration of decision-making, planning and development, with the community of Fremantle. Social, economic and heritage outcomes must be considered. If Victoria Quay is released for development, no development should be planned, or even considered, until the area comes under the City of Fremantle's Town Planning Scheme.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Battye Library call numbers are given in parentheses at the end of an entry. For example: (BL PR 4441). References housed in the Fremantle City Library are shown by (FCL) at the end of an entry; those held by the Planning Department of the City of Fremantle are shown by (FCP). The Votes and Proceedings and the Parliamentary Debates of the Western Australian Legislative Council, and of the subsequent Parliament, have been cited in the text as V & P and Parl. Deb. respectively.
GENERAL TEXTS
Appleyard, R.T. & Manford , Toby 1979, The Beginning: European Discovery and Early Settlement of Swan River Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
Ellement, C. & Davidson, R. 1987, The Divided Kingdom, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle.
Ewers, J. K. 1971, The Western Gateway: a history of Fremantle, 2nd edn, City of Fremantle, Nedlands.
Fall, V. G. 1972, The Sea and the Forest: A history of the port of of Rockingham, University of Western Australia, Nedlands.
Griffiths, Bryn 1989, Wharfies : a celebration of 100 years on the Fremantle waterfront 1889-1989, Platypus Press, Perth.
Le Page, J.S.H. 1986, Building a State, Perth.
McIntyre, Stuart 1984, Militant: the life and times of Paddy Troy Geo. Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
Reece, R. & Pascoe, R. 1983, A Place of Consequence: a pictorial history of Fremantle, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, Fremantle.
Stannage, C.T. (ed) 1981, A New History of Western Australia, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
Tauman, Merab 1975, The Chief: C. Y. O'Connor, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
Wagner, Erika 1988, Seaports in Western Australia, trans. T.H. Elkins, Bamberg.
White, John & Pitt-Morrison, Margaret (Eds) 1979, Western Towns and Buildings, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
ARTICLES
Appleyard, R.T. 1981, 'Western Australia: Economic and demographic growth 1850-1914' in A New History of Western Australia ed C.T. Stannage, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
Dawkins, Jeremy 1990, ’Fremantle's Heartland: Understanding and Designing a Special Place', in Continuum, vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 169-187.
Ghosh, R.N. 1981, 'Economic development and population growth in Western Australia since 1945' in A New History of Western Australia ed C. T. Stannage, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
Snooks, G.D. 1981, 'Development in adversity 1913 to 1946' in A New History of Western Australia ed C.T.Stannage, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
Statham, Pamela 1981, 'Swan River Colony 1829-1850' in A New History of Western Australia ed C. T. Stannage, University of Western Australia Press, Nedlands.
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Stevens, F. 1929, 'Rise of a great port - Fremantle Harbour evolution' , The Western Mail; Fremantle Supplement, 6 June.
Tull, M. T. 1985, 'The development of the Port of Fremantle, Australia's Western Gateway', The Great Circle, 7,2, Oct. 116-137.
REPORTS
Bodycoat, Ron 1986, 'Architectural evaluation of Railway Signal Box Fremantle' (FCP).
Doyne, W. T. 1870, 'Report upon proposed Harbour Works at Fremantle, and Improvement in the Navigation of the Swan River', Perth. (BL PR 4478)
FHT (Fremantle Harbour Trust Commissioners), 1902 - 1964, Annual Reports.
FPA (Fremantle Port Authority Commissioners), 1965 - 1989, Annual Reports.
McIlroy, J. & Meredith, D. 1984, Bather's Bay 1984: a report for the Australian Heritage Commission Department of Maritime Archaeology, W. A. Museum.
O'Connor, C. Y. 1896, Harbour Works at the Port of Fremantle, Perth. (BL PR 4477/1)
Reece, R. 1988, Report on the heritage significance of Short Street Precinct, Fremantle, Western Australia, (FCL 720.99411 LH)
Tydeman, F. W. E. 1948, Report on the port of Fremantle, Perth (FCP).
BOOKLETS, PAMPHLETS & EPHEMERA
Corporation of Fremantle, Mayor, Councillors and Burgesses, etc. 1884, A petition. (BL 040 Pamphlet File Series VII, Folio)
Fremantle Harbour Trust n.d. (1963?), Port of Fremantle: first in Australia. (BL PR 9617/13)
Fremantle Harbour Trust Commissioners 1921, The Port of Fremantle: the Western Gateway to Australia, Perth. (BL PR 9617/11)
Fremantle Harbour Trust Commissioners 1947, The Port of Fremantle, Western Australia: Early History and Development of the Inner Harbour. (BL PR 4441)
UNPUBLISHED THESES AND MANUSCRIPTS
Brown, Patricia M. 1989, The tight little merchant group of Fremantle 1870 - 1900: the rise and decline of a nineteenth century elite, M. A. Thesis, Department of History, University of W. A.
Butcher, L. J. n.d., Western Australian Government Railway Workshops (1880-1930), Teachers College, Graylands.
Harwood, T. 1967, Railways and their influence upon settlement in the Perth & Fremantle area (1881-1901), B.A. Hons thesis, University of W.A. Geography Department. (Not consulted for this study, but may be useful reference).
Kerr, W. 1973, Architecture in Fremantle. 1875-1915 (FCL)
Ralph, Alexander 1963, The development of shipping facilities at Fremantle, Teacher's Higher Certificate thesis. (FCL)
Stevens, L. 1989, Report on (a) Buildings in the Inner Harbour, (b) A - E sheds, Victoria Quay, Victoria Quay, etc. (FCL)
ORAL HISTORY TAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS Stewart, Jock 1976, Interview. (BL OH160)
154
Weyman, Fred 1987, Interview. (0H1941)
White, John 1982, 'The spatial development of Fremantle as a consequence of the growth of her port'. Talk to Maritime History Association, 9 June 1982, tape (BL 0H1103).
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