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Wesley Church is a Methodist church, built in 1889, on the corner of Cantonment and Market Streets.
The first church building on the corner of Market and Cantonment Streets was on land allocated by the Government to a Wesleyan community led by the Rev John Smithies, who had arrived in the Colony in 1840. The chapel was opened the next year. The building was replaced by the present building in 1889. It is used for services 0930 Sundays.
The Battye Library's photo (from Facebook) shows the Wesley Hall which incorporated the 1841 chapel, and, even further to the right, the Wesleyan manse of 1893. Click/tap for large size.
Library: Wesley Hall, incorporating the 1841 Chapel [from Jenkins]. Governor Hutt laid the Foundation stone in September 1840 and the Chapel was extended in 1882. Wesley Church was completed in December 1889. The stone wall surround was removed in 1928. Taken before 1928. Text and photograph #1635 from Fremantle City Library Local History Collection.
The 1841 Chapel was the first Christian church in Fremantle (Strong). Errington writes that the Chapel was opened on 24 May 1842 (147). The chapel is the central building in the photo; the additions on either side are classrooms built in 1896. The extant church is visible at the left of the photo.
The next building on the chapel site was a commercial building, Wesley Chambers, (1928-1973).
City Library photo ref no. 1231D, 1901.
Caption: "North Mole and Victoria Quay are in the background. In the left middle is the three storied Biddles Building or Princess Chambers (c1899); in the centre Wesley Church (1889) and Wesley Manse (1893) [wrong: it's the 1841 chapel]; with the Railway Station (1907) on the right. At the far right is G Wood and Son (c1899)."
The 1889 Wesley Church is just left of centre, with the 1841 Chapel on the right, with 1896 classrooms built onto both sides. The manse is obscured by the Wood&Sons building, the sign of which can be seen on the right (in mirror image).
sOn the left is the 1897 three-story [[../buildings/princesschambers.html|Princess Chambers]] building. At this time the building at the left on the corner of Market and Leake Streets is of one storey only. The two-storey replacement was built in 1912, so this photo is from before that date.
The Wesley Church is concealing most of the [[../buildings/wachambers.html|WA Chambers]] building and the 1907 (current) [[../post/index.html|post office]].
References and Links
Errington, Steve 2016, 'Places of worship in Fremantle, 1829 to 1700', Studies in Western Australian History, 31: 145-158.
Jenkins, Charles A. 1930, A Century in Methodism in Western Australia 1830-1930, Patersons Printing Press, Perth.
Strong, Rowan 2012, 'Religious lives in Fremantle', in Paul Arthur Longley & Geoffrey Bolton, Voices from the West End: Stories, People and Events that Shaped Fremantle, WA Museum: 64-85.
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 24 September, 2014 and hosted at freotopia.org/churches/wesley.html (it was last updated on 23 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.