Cantonment Road - now Queen Victoria Street
Photo from the Fremantle Library Local History Collection 1899 image #1796 of teachers and pupils on Cantonment Hill with the caption: 'The house with the striped awnings later became a private hospital, Salopia. Immediately behind this, in the centre, is Villa Maria, later Torrington House. Sailing ships in the harbour in the background.'
Library:
The Salopia Nursing Home operated in Queen Victoria Street from 1927 to 1937, when it closed after a murder. It was originally built as a private residence for John J. Broomhall, a merchant who lived there until 1926. The Healey family bought the property in 1937 and ran Kelly's School of Dancing there. The side verandah was enclosed to make extra rooms. The demolished house belonged to Dave Johnson of Dave Johnson Motors.
Tonya Lamborn writes to say that her great-grandfather George Kelly bought the house in 1937 cheaply because of the murder there. There were four generations living in it including Amy Kelly, George's eldest daughter, who lived with her husband Syd Healey and their four sons. George’s wife and mother also lived there at the same time. They had a dancing school out the back. There were card games his mother used to host. She was apparently a real card shark and often won a lot of money.
George had previously lived across the road at 121 Queen Victoria Street on the Officeworks block.
References Links Acknowledgement
Many thanks to Tonya Lamborn (personal communication).
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 17 August, 2021 and hosted at freotopia.org/buildings/salopia.html (it was last updated on 6 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.