South Fremantle

South Fremantle has always been part of the Fremantle local government area, tho it is a distinct suburb, bounded at the north by South Street and on the east by Hampton/Cockburn Road. It dips down a bit at the southern end to include the Fremantle Village trailer park.
A southern part of South Fremantle was at one time known as Chesterfield. The area included John Street [now unknown], Douro Road, Hewitt Street (now Daly Street), William Street (now Chester Street), and Lloyd Street. Subdivided by John Chester and named Chesterfield in 1887. By 1930 the name was no longer in use.

South Beach Hydrodrome, Izzy Orloff, 1924?, courtesy SLWA 111820PD (from Facebook)

Heritage hotels in the suburb are the Davilak and Seaview Hotels, both of which have been given new names for no good reason.

There was a Wesleyan (Methodist) church on the corner of Sheedy Street and the Mandurah Road, from 1898.

Florence Park is on the corner of Marine Terrace and what used to be Florence Street, which was named for Florence Jones. Florence married Alex Reid, after whom the Reid Library at UWA is named, and became Lady Florence.
Hollis Park, off Keeling Way and Hickory Street, South Fremantle, is named for Frederick Hollis; it was used as a dumping site from the 1920s/30s to 1959. Frederick Hollis was a Town Councillor 1927-1929, 1929-s1935, and manager of the Union Stores WA Ltd.
Wilson Park is named for J.E. Wilson, who was a Town Councillor 1921-1935.

There has never been a school in the suburb. Beaconsfield Primary School was just over the border, on the east side of Hampton Road, on the corner with Lefroy Road; and South Fremantle High School was in Fremantle, further east along Lefroy Road.

[[Southfremantle/places/img/chesterfield.jpg|]]

Image of 'Chesterfield' published as Xmas greeting card for 1898. See also John Chester, and the Chesterfield Inn, East Rockingham.

[[Southfremantle/places/img/chesterfield2.jpg|]]

Possibly the area known from 1887 as 'Chesterfield'.

References and Links

Barteaux, Jillian 2019, '"Bright breezy bracing South Beach": the history of a seaside playground', Fremantle Studies, 10: 1-17.

South Fremantle Ward of the FCC.

Wikipedia page.

Some photos of South Beach I took in 2010.

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 17 July, 2019 and hosted at freotopia.org/southfremantle/index.html (it was last updated on 23 July, 2021), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.