West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), Monday 1 June 1931, page 11


HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

Fremantle Street Names.

The wealth of historical data connected with street nomenclature in Fremantle was demonstrated by a paper prepared by Miss K. Caldwell on Fremantle street names.

The paper was submitted to the West Aus-tralian Historial Society on Friday night. The paper was read by Mr. I. T. Birt-wistle, who presided. Referring to Cliff-street, the paper stat-ed that this street was built beside the face of Arthur Head cliff, which was after-wards much broken down by convict labour. Arthur Head was probably named after Arthur Trimmer, a friend and fellow traveller of Sir James Stirling. The latter granted himself five acres on the Head, but the home authorities promptly can-celled the grant and returned the land to the Crown. In the old maps, a stone jetty appeared at the river end of this street. Within living memory the only jetty that existed at that spot was the usual wooden structure with protected railings, a tank being erected at the shore approach. On this tank a man was employed all day pumping water from the river. This was used to water the streets. It appeared that the old stone jetty existed in pre-convict days. It was the point from which goods were shipped to Perth. High-street was named by SurgeonGeneral Roe as the main street of the town, in accordance with English custom. It was not until 1887 that the roadway was made eastward of William-street by convict labour. Previously the street was a beaten track leading to Brim's Boys' School (now Girton College). The board-ers at this school stayed in a house at the corner of High and Queen streets, now adjoining the Victoria Hall. The house still stood, and was one of the oldest occupied houses in Fremantle. The paper stated that before the Titles Act came into force in 1874 many lots of land in Fremantle that had been aban-doned were 'jumped,' and in many cases when real owners of property came to register, they found caveats had been lodged by creditors, in many cases hotel-keepers, for accounts long overdue. Mr. R. P. Stevens submitted a paper entitled 'A Trip to Frazer Range in the Seventies.' In breezy narrative form. Mr. Stevens told how he had journeyed from Esperance to Frazer Range, about 150 miles, with Mr. Laurence Sinclair. Lack of water and hostile natives were some of the diffi-culties that Mr. Stevens and his com-panion had to overcome, but they man-aged to reach. Frazers' Range, where they found that the dam that had been erected by the Dempster Bros, contained 500.000 gallons of water. Mr. Stevens paid a tri-bute to the pioneering work of the Demp-ster Bros., who had constructed a dam, despite the difficulties of transport, to provide sufficient water for 5,000 sheep, which they estimated the grassed area in the vicinity would carry.