Answers to Quiz 5: "Merchant Princes"
This quiz is based on Patricia Brown's excellent 1996 book, The Merchant Princes of Fremantle: The Rise and Decline of a Colonial Elite 1870-1900, UWAP. She shows nine of her subjects (topics) on the cover, and nine of the questions are about them.
1. Who built an enormous house in central Freo - with an observatory on the top of it - so big it was called his 'Folly'. He also had a house called Davilak, which gave its name to the hotel, the road, and of course the lake?
2. Who was Mayor of Fremantle 1905-07, dying in office? His house, on the corner of Ellen and Ord Streets, is administered by the National Trust, which sometimes lets people see through it.
Michael Samson. (You might have thought of Sir Frederick Samson, as it was he - Michael's son - who left the house to the community.)
3. Who took over the family business on the corner of Market and High Streets from his mother (the father having died young)? He also at one point owned the pub over the road. Both buildings are still in situ.
4. Whose interests were so diverse that he was President of the Fremantle Football Club, a committee member of the Fremantle Literary Institute, President of the Fremantle Lumpers Union, and also the member for Fremantle in the Legislative Assembly of Western Australia in 1901?
5. Who was so highly regarded that when he died (young) a memorial to him was put up (paid for by public subscription) in The Mayor's Park, at a major intersection in Fremantle? It is still standing there, tho the park is gone. A major street (in a different area) is named in his honour.
6. Whose first names were John Wesley - presumably named after the Methodist? When he died in 1906 he was a millionaire, being a member of one of the most successful business families in Fremantle. One of their buildings still stands on the corner of High and Henry Streets, now the property of the City.
7. The first President of the Chamber of Commerce had a set of buildings in Henry Street unified behind an impressive facade. Today you can have a meal there, or just a coffee, and usually see one or more art exhibitions. Who was this man?
8. Who was not allowed to attend any of the meetings of business-people in Fremantle, despite being in charge of a large and prosperous business?
Mary Higham (because she was not a man).
9. Jack Lee describes a prominent citizen in these words: 'By far the most prominent ... was an MLC and a Justice of the Peace, a chairman of the Town Trust, the first chairman of the Town Council, the first chairman of the Board of Directors of the Fremantle Building and Benefit Society, a member of the Parliamentary committee that had advocated the building of the Fremantle Harbour and with his brother George partner in pastoral properties and a butchery.' Whom is he discussing?
10. Patricia Brown ends her book contemplating (on the very last page) the death of one of the most prominent of Fremantle's citizens, known as 'the father of WA shipping' and builder of the magnificent house he called Ivanhoe (now replaced by a depressing block of flats). She writes, 'He ended his life in a manner which makes a tacit but eloquent commment on life which for rich and poor, was lived in a small isolated community, where existence required a struggle against sickness, fear of penury and isolation.' Who was he?
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 2 October, 2020 and hosted at freotopia.org (it was last updated on 27 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.