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King's Arms
The King's Arms was on Lot 79 Henry Street, which is three lots from the NE corner of High and Henry Streets.
Tuckfield:
In 1832 or before, William Keats opened the Union Hotel; whether on one of his two blocks, nos. 93 or 128, or whether it was one of the aforementioned hotels under a new name is not known, but in July 1832 William Dixon took it over and announced he was opening the Union Hotel. In August the same year, it was offered for sale or to be let for two to three years, but in 1834 Dixon was still the licensee. Later in 1834 it was again offered to let: 'Apply Mrs. Pratt or J. Solomon, now of Perth.' An advertisement of July 1834 ran: 'Dixon's Union Hotel for sale by public auction, comprising 9 rooms, spacious billiard room and kitchen, with outhouses etc.'
In May 1833 Mr. and Mrs. Keats reappeared and advertised that they had taken out a licence for their house, the King's Arms in Henry Street, adjoining Steel's. Tuckfield: 78.
KING'S ARMS,
HENRY-STREET, FREMANTLE
Mr. and Mrs. KEATS beg to acquaint the Public that they have taken out a License for their House, adjoining Steel's Hotel, where every attention will be given to the comfort of their Customers.
Dinners can be provided for a few, and clean beds.
Fremantle, May 24, 1833.
Lot 79 is roughly where there is now an empty building used for private parking - which will probably be developed as part of the Marich Building development. Tuckfield writes that it was opened by Mr and Mrs Keats, formerly of the Union Hotel. (Allen Graham calls it the King's Head.)
This map showing the situation in 1844 has Steel's (or Steele's) Royal Hotel (which started life as the South Sea Hall Public House) on the corner of High and Henry Streets, so the next building to the northwest would be the King's Arms.
The Keats's previous hotel was the Union Hotel, which was on Lot 128, on the corner of Short and Market Streets. That was apparently mentioned in an 1833 advertisement (Perth Gazette, August 3). Lot 128 had been granted to William Keats, and is was he who opened the hotel in 1832 or before. William Dixon took it over in July 1832 and was still the licensee in 1834.
References and Links
Many thanks to Chris Nolan for drawing my attention to the advertisement in the Gazette.
Graham, Allen 2018, pubs of wa, Facebook page. Allen Graham has been researching Fremantle hotels since 1982. There is a map compiled by him in the Fremantle Library showing Fremantle hotels 1829-1857, and I have referred to that to 'complete' some locations above.
Tuckfield, Trevor 1971, 'Early colonial inns and taverns', Early Days: Journal and proceedings of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society, Part 1, 'vol. 7, part 3: 65-82; Part 2, vol. 7, part 7: 98-106.
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, 2018 and hosted at freotopia.org/hotels/kingsarms.html (it was last updated on 5 August, 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.