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William Pearse's Butcher Shop
Town Lot 424, 61-63 High St, cnr Pakenham St, 1850s. Photo taken 1870s by Stephen Stout.
Heritage Council:
William Pearse's butcher shop dating from 1850s, was a Georgian style two storey building with she-oak shingled roof ... . It was updated with a cgi roof and verandahs c1870s, before being demolished c1906 to make way for [Central Chambers]. Heritage Council.
Hitchcock (1919) writes that this was the business of W.S. and G. Pearse. I assume that they were the brothers (William) Silas and George (born 1838 and 1839) sons of the first William Silas Pearse (1808-1866). Hitchcock also tells us that the butcher's shop was next door to W.S. Pearse's private house, so it would be the building above, on the extreme left of the photograph, which has become the Criterion Restaurant in the photograph below.
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Below is the building now on the site. The Surplus Stores moved on a decade or two ago.
Library:
Corner of Pakenham and High Sts c. 1905. FHC image #578. Looking East along High Street from the Pakenham Street corner. The Town Hall is in the centre left background, with, on the right: J.A. Hicks & Co. (No. 81-83, later the Wyola Club), W.J.Beisley, hairdresser and tobacconist, Manchester Dye Works, M. & F. Hamer Newsagency and J. & L. Baker, Butchers. The road is closed due to the laying of tram lines for which the jarrah blocks (6" by 3" by 5"") which made up the road bed were lifted. Fremantle Library.
I believe the building on the extreme right hand side of the 1905 photo may be Pearse's 1850s one, as it was not demolished until 1906, and is of two stories, and is a butcher's shop. Compare the adjacent rooflines of the two buildings in the right foreground: they are the same as in two earlier photos above. The building on the left of the two is therefore W.S. Pearse's house/Criterion Restaurant.
Heritage Council:
Two storey building on corner site [in the present] with single storey at rear onto Pakenham Street. There is a highly decorative first floor façade featuring 'Central Chambers' in stucco, a parapet with balustrade and five highly decorative pediments. The pilastered and stucco arched windows have decorative stucco above and engaged low piers below. There is an original entrance between the shops with stained glass leadlight sidelights and French doors between. The awning over the ground floor shop fronts are not original.
References and Links
Hitchcock, J.K. 1919, 'Early Days of Fremantle: High Street 50 Years Ago', Fremantle Times, series of articles on 'Early Days' publ. March-June.
Hutchison, David, Fremantle Walks.
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 15 July, 2017 and hosted at freotopia.org/buildings/butchershop.html (it was last updated on 18 March, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.