Fremantle Studies Day 2020

Fremantle Studies Day 2020 1.30-5pm Sunday 25 October
North Fremantle Community Hall 2 Thompson Road, North Fremantle
Registration open at 1.00 for a 1.30 start
Members $20, non-members $25
Bookings essential: secretary.fhs@gmail.com; www.fhs.org.au Facebook/fremantlehistorysociety

Program

Welcome, acknowledgements and announcements.
Two papers will be presented followed by afternoon tea. A further paper will be presented following afternoon tea.

Steve Errington, Some surprising aspects of the history of the Round House

Lenore Layman, Lorraine Clarke & Jude Robison, Fremantle through A.T. Maywood’s eyes

Allen Graham, Salacious Settlers, (or love gone wrong)

Abstracts and Biographies

1. Some surprising aspects of the history of the Round House – Steve Errington

Fremantle Gaol, better known as the Round House, is WA’s oldest public building but narrowly escaped demolition in the 1920s. In the 25 years after January 1831 it was home to runaway sailors and servants, drunks, thieves both Aboriginal and colonial, court-martialled soldiers and, in the absence of a hospital and lunatic asylum, the physically and mentally ill. The whalers’ tunnel was completed early in 1838 and a study of Gaolers Returns reveals the names of the prisoners who dug it as part of their hard labour. The Round House was WA’s most important gaol until replaced by a new Perth gaol in 1856.

Dr Steve Errington is a former Chemistry academic who switched to colonial history on retiring in 2009. He is currently President of the Royal WA Historical Society and is a former committee member of the Fremantle History Society. In 2013 he published Southerners Forever More, a history of the South Fremantle Football Club. He has been a voluntary guide at the Round House since 2014, and has been researching its history for 18 months

2. Fremantle through A.T. Maywood’s eyes – Lenore Layman, Lorraine Clarke and Jude Robison

Visit 1889-1910 Fremantle with us through the photographs of Alfred Thomas Maywood. His carefully curated album of Fremantle life provides images of a prosperous and progressive urban community as well as glimpses of more hidden histories. Judy Robison, Lorraine Clarke and Lenore Layman will be your guides on this photographic journey of discovery.

Dr Lenore Layman is a historian now busy with community history projects, mostly with the Royal WA Historical Society and the Society for the Study of Labour History. Historical research, writing and editing, what better way to constitute a retirement! She has researched and published in Western Australian history, notably on mining and health (Wittenoom and asbestos), gold (at Leonora) and industry (East Perth Power Station).

Lorraine Clarke (Friends of Battye Library) from Swan Genealogy, is a Professional Genealogist involved in researching and compiling family histories. She has worked as a researcher and coordinator on exhibitions in conjunction with the Western Australian Genealogical Society Inc. She has published books and databases on Western Australia History including East Perth Cemeteries, Outback Graves, and Australia's Last Convicts. Currently she is Treasurer, Vice Chair Royal WA Historical Society Inc and is on the committee of Friends of Battye Library Inc and Outback Grave Markers Inc.

Jude Robison is a former academic who has published books and papers on aspects of Western Australian history. She is currently Vice President of the Fremantle History Society.

3. Salacious Settlers, (or love gone wrong) – Allen Graham

No doubt there are a lot of good feeling love stories to be told about many of the early settlers to Western Australia, despite the hard time that those settlers had to endure. But those tough conditions also put a strain on many relationships, where love was tested and gossip spread. This paper is a collection of tales from the very earliest days of the colony through until the 1890s, that show how colonial women were most often the inferior and poorly treated partner in a marriage, or de facto relationship.

Allen, who is the current President of the Fremantle History Society, is a long standing member of the Society and a lifelong resident of Fremantle. He has been researching and writing about Fremantle’s hotels for over thirty five years. Allen operates a guided tour business in Fremantle where he freely shares his knowledge of Fremantle. He has won the City of Fremantle’s unpublished history award on three occasions.

Freotopia

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 5 October, 2020 and hosted at freotopia.org/fhs/fs/fsday/fsday2020.html (it was last updated on 17 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.