Fremantle Studies No. 12

You can obtain a copy by post by downloading this order form. Or simply by contacting by email the FHS Treasurer, Pam or Secretary, Kristi.

Launched at Fremantle Studies Day October 2023; photo by Pam Harris. Authors published in this volume are (from left) Paul Reilly, Allen Graham, Steve Errington, Cate Pattison, and Bobbie Oliver. That's Deputy Mayor Jenny Archibald on the right, who kindly provided the photo (in Facebook) and therefore the information.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Volume 12 of Fremantle History Society’s Fremantle Studies. The volume contains papers from Fremantle Studies Days in 2019 and 2020.

As expected this publication adds new and interesting information on Fremantle’s past. The journal is comparatively small (due to COVID and it ; represents six of seven papers presented in 2019 and 2020.

The 2019 papers followed the theme of work and included the paper by Fremantle Scholarship winner Cate Pattison. Cate based her research on the State Engineering Works in North Fremantle, interviewing retired employees as a key part of her research. The fascinating oral interviews are available online. You will find a link to them at the end of Cate’s paper providing a rare insight into what work was like during the 20th Century, particulary in a large engineering works. Cate’s work is not only a valuable addition to our knowledge of Fremantle’s history but also to the broader area of labour history. Continuing the labour history theme, Bobbie Oliver’s paper provides an interesting account of the Patrick’s dispute which occurred in ports around Australia in 1998. Bobbie’s paper focusses on the events at Fremantle at this time and discusses the intimidating tactics used to prevent workers from entering the work site. The dispute was finally resolved with compromises and Bobbie argues that Australians need to support the right to union representation which has been watered down during the Howard and Morrison governments.

Also in 2019, Charlie Fox presented a paper entitled the 'History of Chinese Seamen in Fremantle'. Unfortunately, the paper was published in 2019 in Radical Perth, Militant Fremantle, Charlie Fox & Alexis Vassiley eds, which prevented its inclusion in this publication. Radical Perth, Militant Fremantle is available in libraries and bookshops.

During 2020, with the widespread threat of COVID in the community, the history society committee decided early in the year to abandon planning for the 2020 Studies Day; however as time went on, and guidelines were clearer for meetings during COVID, it was decided to go ahead with the day. Three speakers were found at short notice and we thank them for their contribution under difficult circumstances.

Lorraine Clark, Lenore Layman and (then) secretary of the Fremantle History Society Judith Robison gave a joint presentation on the photograph album of A. T. Maywood held by the Royal Western Australian Historical Society.

Several of the photographs from the album are published in this volume. The paper demonstrates the value of photographs as historical sources. Maywood was a keen amateur photographer and left a carefully curated photograph album featuring Fremantle in the 1890-1900s including landscapes and streetscapes, residents, commercial and cultural activities and sports. Certainly an interesting snapshot of Fremantle during a period of rapid development and population growth due to the gold rushes of the 1890s in the eastern goldfields.

Steve Errington's paper looks at little known facets of the early history of the Round House, Western Australia’s oldest public building – which narrowly escaped demolition in the 1920s. In the 25 years after its opening in January 1831, it was home to runaway sailors and servants, drunks, thieves both Aboriginal and colonial, court-martialled soldiers and, in the absence of a hospital and lunatic asylum, the physically and mentally ill. The Whalers Tunnel, which runs under the Round House, was completed early in 1838 and a study of Gaoler’s Returns reveals the names of the prisoners who dug it as part of their hard labour. The Gaoler’s Returns provide an enlivened view of the people who were incarcerated at this time.

Finally, (then) FHS President, Allen Graham delivered a paper chronicling some of the not so savoury characters in early Fremantle and the impact their society of the time, particularly women. Allen relates stories of domestic violence, infidelity and suicide and, of course, scandal and gossip in the various accounts sourced from historical newspapers. Life wasn’t easy for many early settlers and this paper highlights some of the social problems of the time. On a happier note, Allen indicates at the start of the paper that ‘No doubt there are a lot of good feeling love stories to be told about many of the early settlers to Western Australia, despite the hard time that those settlers had to endure.’ The paper provides insight into the difficulties of living Fremantle in early years of the 19th Century.

We thank the contributors who have given of their time, knowledge and expertise to produce such interesting papers relating to the history of Fremantle. Thank you. to Shelley Campbell who prepared the index and Ian Chambers for his skills and patience during the laying out of the volume 12. Anne Brake, Heather Campbell, Pam Harris, and Judith Robison undertook the editing.

We commend it to you.

CONTRIBUTORS

Lorraine Clarke

Lorraine Clarke, Professional Genealogist, enjoys publishing personal family histories as well as Criminal/Convict History of Western Australia and the promotion of WA. primary source research materials. Previous publications - Australia’s Last Convicts, Deaths in Western Australia — A Genealogical Guide. Committee Member - Friends of Battye Library.

Steve Errington

Dr Steve Errington is a former vice president of the Fremantle History Society whose earlier Fremantle Studies papers concerned Fremantle in 1829-32 and nineteenth century Fremantle football. His 2014 book on the South Fremantle Football Club Southerners Forever More was awarded first prize in the City of Fremantle/Town of East Fremantle local history awards. He is a Fellow of the Royal WA Historical Society which he joined in 1963 and of which he was president in 2019-21. A Round House guide, he has recently published The Round House 1831-1856 (Hesperian Press) and is currently putting finishing touches to the companion volume Locked up in Fremantle 1929-1856, a dictionary of Round House inmates.

Allen Graham

Allen, President of the Fremantle History Society 2019-2023, is a long standing member of the Society and a lifelong resident of Fremantle, having been born and raised in Beaconsfield. Allen was a Councillor with the City of Fremantle during the heady days of the America Cup, serving on the Fremantle Council between 1985 and 1990. Allen has been researching and writing about Fremantle’s history for over thirty-five years with a particular focus on Fremantle’s hotels. He has won the City, of Fremantle’s unpublished history award on three occasions and two of those essays have since been published in Fremantle Studies.

Lenore Layman

Dr Lenore Layman is a retired historian who is busy with community history projects, mostly with the Royal WA Historical Society where she is a Councillor and newsletter editor. She is also active in the Society for the Study of Labour History, and secretary of the WA History Foundation. Her most recent publication is Asbestos in Australia: From Boom to Dust (2019).

Bobbie Oliver

Dr Bobbie Oliver is an Honorary Research Fellow in History and Director of the Centre for Western Australian History at UWA She has written extensively on trade unions and their struggles to obtain and maintain decent pay and working conditions.

Cate Pattison

Cate Pattison studied communications (Cultural Studies Hons) at Murdoch University in the early 1990s and worked for the BBC in London as a media researcher for ten years. She returned to Perth and developed a career in oral history and organisational history writing, also working as a research assistant at UWA in the Business School and History Department. Cate currently works in the not-for-profit community sector.

Paul Reilly

Paul Reilly completed a Master of Philosophy Thesis in 2018 at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle, entitled “Harbouring Discontent: Activism in 1930s Fremantle”. Previously, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts through the Open University, UK. He has a keen interest in inter-world war history, and was keen to study Western Australia in this period in after emigrating from Scotland to Australia in 2002. Paul has worked as a nurse for over 40 years and is still employed in this capacity in Mandurah. He also continues to have a local Fremantle connection through his weekly music broadcasts on Radio Fremantle.

Judith Robison

Current President of the Fremantle History Society Judith Robison is a retired Social Science educator. She has published various resource collections for use in schools, such as From the Sources: a History of Westem Australia in Documents and Images as well as numerous publications on professional development for teachers.

References and Links

Many thanks to Jenny Archibald.

Freotopia

This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 17 September, 2021 and hosted at freotopia.org/fhs/fs/12/index.html (it was last updated on 7 November, 2023). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.

Fhs/fs/12/index.html

Contents

Fremantle Studies No. 12

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CONTRIBUTORS

References and Links