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Moores Building
(42-)46 Henry St, 1900 (1830s-)
Moore's Building, 42-46 Henry St, was built for William Dalgety Moore. It is now an art gallery and coffee shop (called Moore & Moore). The facade is from about 1900. The City of Fremantle owned and restored the building 1986-7.
Hutchison:
W D Moore Buildings. Architect: John McNeece (1906). Builders: Abbott and Rennie. Nos. 42-46. This is a significant site. As Kent, Kiera and Dawkins (1988) have shown, it retains evidence of stages of development from the 1830s in business, the economy, building technology and architectural style. The oldest building, dating from the 1830s, is a three-storey storehouse in the rear courtyard. It was built by George F Johnson, but the occupant is unknown. In a wall of an early building are strange stones, probably ballast from sailing ships arriving from England. The property became part of a larger property from 1855 to 1855, when it was purchased by William Tanner. Samuel Moore—a brother of the attorney-general, George Fletcher Moore—operated as a merchant on the site from 1842 to 1845. Until 1862 it remained in Moore’s deceased estate, but the occupant is unknown. For the next six years J H Monger Jr and William D Moore, Samuel’s son, conducted business as merchants, but Moore later operated on his own. His company flourished in a wide range of activities: merchandising, timber, pearling, fish canning, shipping, flour milling and agencies. William’s son, George F Moore, took over the business in 1900 and built a series of additions, surrounding the old house with new offices, stores and a warehouse. The present facade must date from this time. George died in 1935 and the business was managed by his eldest son, John H Moore, until 1945, when his younger brother, Frederick H Moore, took over. Soon afterwards, the firm began to manufacture windmills and, in 1955, moved to premises in O‘Connor, after over a hundred years on this site. The use of the buildings, under new owners, from 1956 to 1965 is unknown. From then until 1985 the property was owned by Stevenson Transport. With a special America's Cup grant this property was bought by the City of Fremantle and the buildings were restored in 1986-87. Restoration and conservation was preceded by detailed analysis, by the architect Jack Kent, to ensure its validity. In 2005 the buildings are used as an art gallery and for commercial purposes. (Hutchison)
Tayor:
In 1868 William Dalgety Moore acquired lots 89 and 90 Henry Street from the beneficiaries of his father Samuel’s estate. The property, which had seen earlier occupancy, was a short distance from the port city’s shipping facilities which were then located at South Bay, or where the Esplanade Reserve is today. This was an ideal location for the entrepreneurial William whose general merchandising business grew and flourished along with the colony of Fremantle. The firm’s activities rapidly expanded to include the milling of flour, shipping and exporting pearl shell, timber, wool, and other interests throughout Western Australia. W.D. Moore was also an explorer and represented Fremantle in the Legislative Council. He became the inaugural treasurer of the Fremantle Town Council and the first president of the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce. (Taylor: 3)
Wikipedia:
WD Moore & Co Warehouse complex is on Henry Street, Fremantle. It was unified in 1899 behind an ornamental stucco facade. A store was established on the site by Samuel Moore in the 1840s. William Dalgety Moore later established a general merchant business there in 1862. The complex comprises a residence, warehouse, factory stable, offices and shop, built between 1862 and 1899, in addition to a three storey backstore which was built at an unknown date, possibly as early as 1844. The complex was listed on the Register of the National Estate in 1978. (Wikipedia)
References and Links
Kent, Jack, Agnieshka Kiera & Jeremy Dawkins 1998, The Moores Buildings: A Conservation Project, City of Fremantle.
Taylor, Robyn 1995, The Moores Project: Conservation of the The Moores Complex of Buildings, Architecture & Heritage Section, City of Fremantle.
Wikipedia page.
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 18 December, 2015 and hosted at freotopia.org/buildings/moores.html (it was last updated on 3 April, 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.