Town Lot 18

NE corner of Cliff and High Streets

Town Lot 18 was originally granted to William Lamb, who may not done anything with it. It is now where the [[../hotels/fremantlehotel.html|Hotel Fremantle]] has stood since 1898. Fremantle Hotel appears to be on Lot 17 also. Richard Brown owned Lot 18 1855-1878, when W.D Moore bought it. A residence was built for him (Moore) in 1885, and there are apparently some remnants at the rear of the extant building.

Also on original Lot 18 are [[../buildings/tannatt.html|Tannatt Chambers]], the [[../buildings/cellars.html|Cellars]], and what I am calling the Webb Building at [[../buildings/12high.html|12 High Street]].

J.K. Hitchcock writes that in 1869:
On the opposite corner on which the Hotel Fremantle has since been built lived Dr Limon Oliver whose wife kept a ladies’ seminary while the doctor himself kept a little chemist’s shop about where the [[../buildings/tannatt.html|Tannatt Chambers]] now are. The doctor was a very genial old gentleman, and reputed to be very skilful in his profession. Up to the year 1868 when the Medical Registration Act came into force anyone who liked could practice as a doctor. The Act permitted all who had been practicing medicine to register whether they held a diploma or not, consequently every chemist in the place registered, and among them Dr. Oliver. I do not think there is now a single one of these pseudo-doctors left. Dr. Oliver however, was a really qualified man, having taken the degree of M.B. in an English University, but being transported to W.A. he lost the privileges attaching to that qualification.
Next to the chemist’s shop was a small cottage occupied by a Customs tide-waiter named Moran, and from thence to the corner of Mouatt-street was vacant land carrying a luxuriant crop of castor oil trees.

References and Links

Fremantle History Centre. Look for the PDFs called:
Purchasers of Fremantle Town Lots 1829-1837
Purchasers of Fremantle Town Lots 1855-1879

Hitchcock, J.K. 1919, [[../books/hitchcock1919.html|'Early Days of Fremantle: High Street 50 Years Ago']], Fremantle Times, one of a series of articles on 'Early Days of Fremantle' publ. 21 March - 20 June 1919.

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 3 December, 2022 and hosted at freotopia.org/lots/18.html (it was last updated on 25 June, 2023). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.