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Federation Warehouse, Princess Billiard Hall and Princess Theatres
Recent research by Ross McCay indicates it is very likely that the Federation Warehouse at 2 Leake Street was built in 1897 by architects Drake and Whitwell, for the engineering supplier Barre Johnston & Co. It was probably greatly extended to more than double its original size in 1913 to make it an entertainment hall which is extant.
It is certain that from 1913 until 1941 the Warehouse operated as the Princess Billiard Hall. It had 12 tables – serious billiards requiring a large space, and it advertised in the press over many years. It paid rates to the Fremantle Council which approved external signage on its Leake Street wall.
The original Edwardian style 1912 Princess Theatre building, adjacent to the Princess Billiard Hall, showed silent films, then talkies from 1929 and featured vaudeville. That building has never had a street frontage but access was via an arcade from Market Street. The old theatre building still stands behind the Warehouse.
In 1941 extensive internal reconstruction of both billiard and theatre buildings ended the Princess Billiard enterprise. A new Princess Theatre, with a new, much larger interior in the Art Deco style operated from 1941 until 1969 inside the old Federation Warehouse.
References and Links
Research and text courtesy of Ross McCay, 2023.
See also: Princess Theatre.
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 24 October, 2023 and hosted at freotopia.org/buildings/federationwarehouse.html (it was last updated on 24 October, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.