The Boer War begins. Western Australia contributes six contingents consisting of 922 men, many of them from Fremantle. Western Australians killed during that campaign numbered five officers and 33 non-commissioned officers and men.
June. Fremantle Cemetery opened.
July. The sailing vessel City of York wrecked off Rottnest, 11 of the crew drowned, 15 saved. A monument to the memory of the dead was erected over the grave in the cemetery by public subscription.
On the same day, the sailing vessel Carlisle Castle wrecked in a severe gale off Rockingham; the whole of the officers and crew, numbering 22, were drowned.
9 October. Foundation stone of the Sailors' Rest in Marine Terrace laid by Sir John Forrest. The building comprised a large hall with seating accommodation for 150 persons, separate apartments and sitting rooms for officers and men and private quarters for the missioner. It was designed to provide opportunities for seamen to spend their leisure hours in comfortable and wholesome surroundings. It was founded mainly through the efforts of the late Mrs. T. W. Smith [Rosa Henriques Smith]
October. Captain Riddell, of the schooner Ethel, together with his son and mate, murdered on the pearling grounds by a Malay crew. The perpetrators of the crime brought to Perth, convicted of murder, and hanged.
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 6 August, 2015 and hosted at freotopia.org/timeline/1899.html (it was last updated on 19 December, 2018), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.