Freotopia > quizzes > quiz 13: port
Answers to Quiz 13: Fremantle Port
1. There is a building on Victoria Quay with a sign on it reading THE OLD POLICE STATION, VICTORIA QUAY. What was its function before it was a police station?
It was the Immigration Office and Information Bureau.
2. Speaking of Victoria Quay, who ceremonially gave it its name (it used to be just the "South Wharf") in 1901?
It was given that name by the Duchess of Cornwall and York (later Queen Mary) 26 July 1901 when she and the Duke (later King George V) visited (although Victoria had died 22 January, and Edward VII was monarch).
3. The Harbour Trust office was built on Arthur Head. O'Connor used it as his office during the building of the port. It was then moved to where the FPA building (the big one) is now. How was it moved?
On rail tracks. You have to see the photo to believe it. It was not a small building.
4. The Fremantle Port Authority {now called Fremantle Ports) building was built in 1963 and the Passenger Terminal completed in 1962. Both contain large major works by a Western Australian artist. Who?
Howard Taylor. Ted Snell and I had a drink with him in the 1970s at his place, an apartment on the corner of Eric Street and Marine Parade Cottesloe.
5. There are three slipways on the South Wharf. What is on the biggest one?
HMAS Ovens, an Oberon class submarine. I don't suppose any of the slipways will be used again for their original purpose. The buildings containing the winding gear still stand, but the cables have been cut or removed and the cradles not maintained. It will become a tourist precinct one day, but not in my lifetime.
6. There are two Boom Defence buildings on Victoria Quay and even a Boom Defence jetty at the western end of the river mouth. What was the boom?
In Wikipedian words:
To protect the Fremantle Harbour, anti-submarine and anti-torpedo boom nets were installed across the harbour entrance in 1941, spanning between North and South Moles. This barrier was a buoyed wire mesh net that could be opened in its centre by a winch at North Mole.
See also the article anti-submarine net, which leads in turn to one on torpedo net.
I have as yet no idea how this worked, but I presume my photo shows (on South Mole) some of the gear that was involved in manipulating the boom holding up the nets.
7. Where is Dago Bay?
Between the slipways and South Mole. I apologise to any older readers who may still find the term offensive, but it has slipped out of usage and is not, by definition, offensive if no-one uses it to offend. The bay got the name because Portuguese and Italian fishermen used to moor their boats there, in the river mouth, protected by the mole, before there was a fishingboat harbour in South Bay.
File:Freotopia people img edwards.jpg
8. Who died as an outcome from 'Bloody Sunday', 4 May 1919?
9. Who created the large statue of C.Y. O'Connor which is now standing in front of Fremantle Ports' building? (And who created a statue of him - the first sculptor?)
Pietro Porcelli. And Greg James did the statue of Porcelli at work that stands in the St John's churchyard.
10. What is the apparatus standing on the extreme western end of Victoria Quay? It has a solar panel for power.
It's a tide gauge. Fremantle Shipping News has an exhaustive article about it by Nicholas McMahon, from which I've stolen the above photo.
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