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[[../../../../index.html|Freotopia]] > [[../../../../society/index.html|Fremantle History Society]] > Fremantle Studies > 1 > Foreword
==== Fremantle Studies no.1, 1999
Journal of the Fremantle History Society ====
Foreword
All who are interested in Western Australian history will welcome the arrival of this new journal, Fremantle Studies, as a valuable avenue for the publication of research and reminiscence on Fremantle's diverse and rich history. Fremantle Studies is the journal of the Fremantle History Society, an organisation which has claimed a significant place in history-making in Western Australia since its establishment in 1994. The Society promotes research and dissemination of information about Fremantle's past by providing a forum where all those fascinated by that past can meet to present papers and give talks. There is no lack of enthusiasm for Fremantle's history. Indeed, the distinctive and proud place of Fremantle in Western Australia’s past is evidenced by both the rich flow of oral reminiscence and the keenness of numerous researchers to delve into archival, published, built environment and oral records relating to the port city.
This inaugural issue of Fremantle Studies makes available some of that history- making in published form. The Fremantle Studies Days held by the Fremantle History Society in 1996 and 1997, together with talks given at the Society's general meetings, have provided the papers which form this first issue. They explore a variety of Fremantle's pasts.
The first two articles examine Fremantle women's work. Ann Delroy and Phyl Brown, curators at the Western Australian Museum, analyse the patterns of women's work which produced the ‘sugar and spice‘ of Mills & Ware's cakes and biscuits for almost the whole of the twentieth century. This research was undertaken when the factory closed as background for a splendid museum exhibition on the workplace, the workers and the place of Mills & Ware and its products in the memories of Fremantle people. Patsy Brown casts her net wide to picture the great variety of women's work in Fremantle in the first part of the twentieth century. Both articles point to the importance of paid work for generations of Fremantle women, to the cultural and social constraints they faced and to the value of the work they did.
Other articles focus on Fremantle as a port. Tony Fletcher examines the port during the 1939-45 war, examining the wartime conditions of waterfront work and uncovering three forgotten incidents of port violence, two of them involving Chinese crewmen on ships forced south by Japan‘s advance. Sally May follows the fortunes of Fremantle's Sicilian and Molfettese fishers from their establishment of a significant fishing industry in the 1890s through their struggles for a fair marketing system to their successful establishment of the Fremantle Fishermen's Co-operative in 1947. The article builds most successfully on the work of earlier researchers of Fremantle's Italian history, notably Charles Gamba and Margaret Howroyd.
Fremantle is fortunate in the strength of its Local History Collection at the City of Fremantle Library, as it is in the extent of heritage research on its built environment. The preservation of the Round House was among the first campaigns of the newly formed Royal Western Australian Historical Society in the interwar period. That society also appears to have instigated an attempt to establish a Fremantle Historical Society in 1960 when it suggested the need for such an organisation to Fremantle's mayor, Fred Samson. While this endeavour proved unsuccessful, the 1960s was marked by the small beginnings of an interest in heritage - chiefly the preservation of the Round House and the Old Asylum in Finnerty Street - on the part of the mayor and some Council staff. With the formation of a residents’ association, the Fremantle Society, and changing Council attitudes, Fremantle was well-placed to take advantage of some of the earliest National Estate grants.
Extensive research on Fremantle's built environment has continued from the mid- 1970s to the present, involving numerous historical heritage consultants. One of them, David Hutchison, provides an account of his heritage research into Victoria Quay's transit sheds as well as indicating some significant incidents in waterfront history which occurred in their environs. Geoff Harcourt also focuses on port structures and port work, specifically on Co-operative Bulk Handling's North Fremantle grain terminal in the period from the 1940s to the 1960s, and on the distinctive work culture which developed there. His vivid picture of a close-knit, assertive, casual labouring culture built around a workplace hierarchy of purple circle, untouchables and seagulls draws on the lively reminiscences of ex-workers themselves.
The final articles are reminiscence histories. Alec Smith tells of growing up at the Fremantle Hotel in the 1930s and 1940s: west end residents, customers and barmaids, bookmakers and police, parades and street life. His picture of the port in wartime complements that of Tony Fletcher. Eric Silbert's reminiscence of Fremantle's Jewish families - particularly his own kin, the Masels and Silberts - illuminates another important facet of historic Fremantle's commercial life and ethnic diversity.
The Western Australian History Foundation is delighted to have been able to assist in the publication of Fremantle Studies because of the contribution it makes to a greater understanding of Western Australian history. May research and reminiscence continue.
Lenore Layman
Executive Director
Western Australian History Foundation
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