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Henderson Street

Henderson Street was named (Caldwell, 1931) for the first Comptroller-General of Convicts, Edmund Y.W. Henderson, who arrived June 1850 on Scindian with the first transported convicts. It was created when Henderson set the boundaries of the Convict Establishment, requiring this new street at the southwesterly border. There is a plan with Governor Clarke's 1846 signature on it that at first blush seems to show the street in existence at that time. But a preliminary plan of the prison is also drawn on the same piece of paper, and the planning for that did not begin until Henderson arrived, so the plan was changed after 1846 (probably in more ways than one). The lettering of 'Henderson Street' was done by a different hand than that of adjoining streets.

The street runs, as it has always done since 1850 or later (but not earlier), between Queen Street and South Terrace (except that the most southerly section is now a mall). It contained housing for discipline warders (ordinary gaolers), and instructing warders (sappers and miners).

The Salvation Army citadel used to stand in William Street near the corner, but now the whole block on that northern side is occupied by the ghastly Queensgate parking station. The Freemasons (now Sail and Anchor) Hotel has stood on one of the South Terrace corners since 1901, but there was a hotel there from 1854. On the other South Terrace corner stand the Markets (1898) which replaced 1850s supervising warders cottages.

[[Streets/churches/img/citadel183.jpg|]]

Library:
Corner of William and Henderson Streets. The Salvation Army Citadel was built in 1898, ... destroyed by fire in 1969 and demolished in September/October 1971. The site is now occupied by the Henderson Street parking station. Two storey Warders Quarters in Henderson Street, built 1898, demolished for the parking station in September 1971. ... Text and 1971 photo #183 from the Fremantle Library Local History Collection.

The warders residences on the north side of Henderson Street.

Most westerly of the three rows of warders cottages on the south side of Henderson Street.
Library:
Fremantle Library Local History Collection photo #1284C, 1978. Caption: 'The Warders' Quarters were built ... in 1851. They were designed by Captain E Y W Henderson and the building work was supervised by J Manning.'

Library:
Skip Watkins 1985 photo FHS #E000252. The former Courthouse, constructed of Fremantle limestone in 1899, is an example of a building designed in the Federation Academic Classical style by the Public Works Department. Fremantle Courthouse (fmr) and Police Station Complex formed part of the original convict land grant that was established as part of the Fremantle Convict Establishment in 1851. The site, originally used for barracks and warders’ quarters, was taken over by the police in 1888, and since then has maintained links to both the Police and Fremantle Prison.

The first substantial buildings on Henderson St included barracks built for the sappers and miners (later Royal Engineers) who began to arrive in 1850 to construct and manage the infrastructure required for the convict enterprise, the largest group arriving in 1851 on board the Anna Robertson. The image above is clipped from an 1877/1885 map and shows the sappers barracks at the top, next to the ST in HENDERSON ST. The long building was the married quarters, the bottom one was for single men, and the top building housed the offices. (Kerr 1998: 2) At the other end of Henderson st, on the corner of South Terrace, are two pairs of semi-detached houses which Kerr shows as being for 'instructing warders'. These, as opposed to 'discipline warders', who lived in the Warders Cottages between, were sappers whose job it was to instruct convicts and supervise their work in building etc. It's not clear which of the sappers got these separate cottages, tho it's possible they were the non-commissioned officers, as there were sergeants stationed in Fremantle.

References and Links

Caldwell, Kate 1931, 'Fremantle street names', Early Days: Journal of Royal WA Historical Society, 1, 9: 45-57; repr. in John K. Ewers, 1971 [1948], The Western Gateway: A History of Fremantle, 2nd ed.; appendix 9: 'Fremantle Street Names': 219-230.

The top photo, by Roel Loopers, used with permission, shows the south side of the street, from the Markets at the western end, and including all of the warders cottages that still exist. That is the streetscape that will be overlooked by the six-storey glass&concrete box of the Andrew Forrest hotel, soon to be built.

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 16 May, 2017 and hosted at freotopia.org/streets/henderson.html (it was last updated on 18 November, 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.