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Historical Police Stations

The first police stations/quarters (and water police) were at the western end of High Street, near the Whalers Tunnel under Arthur Head; two photographs are on the page for the W.F. Samson house, as it was next door. I should think the officers used the Round House as their lockup when required, as it was just up the stairs to the west.

When the railway was laid between Cliff Street and the Arthur Head 'cliff', it may have required building adjustments, as this overlay, kindly provided by Lee-Anne Percival, tends to suggest. (See the map a bit further down this page.) She has overlaid the 1853 map shown at the top of this page with an 1898 map drawn after the railway went through.

When, slightly later, police also shared, for a few years, the water police premises in Marine Terrace, between Cliff and Mouat Streets, this move may have been occasioned by the railway construction mentioned in the previous paragraph, as suggested by Lee-Anne Percival.

Photos of the first police premises - in the foreground

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This c. 1890 photograph is courtesy RWAHS ref. R2225, and is reproduced in a large size in Dowson 2004: 96.

Note that there seem to be only three buildings in this post-railway photograph, whereas four are shown in the plan at the top of this page. Perhaps the most southwesterly of the four has been removed to make room for the railway line - which starts to turn south at this point to head for the (newer) Long Jerry.

The 1873 map to the right shows the building that used to be there. Lee-Anne Percival suggests that the pile of pieces of wood on the right of the photo might have come from the demolition of the missing building.

Henderson Street

The Henderson Street Police Station complex was built between 1896 and 1903, and includes the former courthouse, police station, various accommodation buildings, artillery drill hall, and lock-up. According to Conole (2006), the police only moved here in 1916 from High St. (They are in 2021 back in High Street, in a former bank building.)

Library:
Skip Watkins 1985 photo FHS #E000254. Caption: The former Courthouse, constructed of Fremantle limestone in 1899, is an example of a building designed in the Federation Academic Classical style by the Public Works Department. Fremantle Courthouse (fmr) and Police Station Complex formed part of the original convict land grant that was established as part of the Fremantle Convict Establishment in 1851. The site, originally used for barracks and warders quarters, was taken over by the police in 1888, and since then has maintained links to both the Police and Fremantle Prison.

Skip Watkins 1985 photo FHS #E000252.

The first substantial buildings on the Henderson St site, where the police station complex is now, were barracks built for the sappers (later Royal Engineers) who began to arrive in 1850 to construct and manage the infrastructure required for the convict enterprise, the largest group arriving in 1851 on board the Anna Robertson. The image above is clipped from an 1885 map and shows the sappers barracks at the top, next to the ST in HENDERSTON ST. The long building was the married quarters, the bottom one was for single men, and the top building housed the offices. (Kerr 1998: 2) At the other end of Henderson st, on the corner of South Terrace, are two pairs of semi-detached houses which Kerr shows as being for 'instructing warders'. These, as opposed to 'discipline warders', who lived in the Warders Cottages between, were sappers whose job it was to instruct convicts and supervise their work in building etc. It's not clear which of the sappers got these separate cottages. The building at the bottom of the image, with '28', was called The Barracks, and housed members of the Enrolled Pensioner Force.

Murray Edmonds 1971 slide photo FHC #ES00303, with this caption: Police station and courthouse (1898-1899) and Warders Quarters in Henderson Street looking towards South Terrace. Three sets of Warders Quarters are shown from left: Nos 41-33 (built 1852), Nos 29-19 (built 1851) and Nos 17-7 (built 1858).

Photo by Gnangarra, from Wikipedia.

Part of the former Fremantle police complex with the entrance to the courthouse on the left. Taken from the Henderson St carpark by Derek Graham for Google.

John Dowson:
Why did the police leave their Henderson Street headquarters which they had for 100 years just because they were told it would cost $20 million to update them? Instead they are now [2023] spending $100 million ruining a site also in the buffer zone of the World Heritage Prison. In Henderson Street the courthouse was adjacent in Holdsworth Street, a proximity recommended 150 years ago, as The West Australian Times of 1 Sept 1864 points out:
"Why not have had the (Police) Station in some street in the centre of the town, with a good large room attached for the Court to be held in? The public would then have been spared those revolting sights which, until lately, were almost of daily occurrence in our principal thoroughfare ; I allude to the way in which men who were "drunk and incapable" were usually taken to the lock-up. If the toper could not walk, "drag him" was the order, (this operation consisted in catching hold of his two arms and dragging him along the road), and before half the distance to the Station was reached the man would have half his clothes torn off his back, and be almost in a state of nudity. I have myself witnessed it in many cases, and have seen ladies compelled to turn down side-streets or into houses to avoid passing them ; we ought to be thankful, if only for decency's sake, that a stretcher has been used ever since the appointment of the officer at present in charge of the station."

Bank in High Street

Temporarily the local police station, 88 High Street was previously a branch of the National Australia bank.

New Police Complex proposed for South Terrace.

The site for this is being prepared in late 2023. JAP will probably approve it c. August 2023.

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Contents

Historical Police Stations

Photos of the first police premises - in the foreground

Henderson Street

Bank in High Street

New Police Complex proposed for South Terrace.

References, Links, Acknowledgements