NEW BOOK SHOWCASES SOCIETY HERITAGE BATTLES

REVIEW: STEEPED in controversy since 1972, The Fremantle Society is this city’s heritage ‘sentinel’. Fiercely dedicated to planning excellence and the rich cultural history written into buildings, streets and special places including the West End where president John Dowson on July 8 launched his latest publication to celebrate 50 years of ‘serving and saving Fremantle’.
But from what exactly?
Right now it’s a hostile election candidate who before she became mayor dismissed the Society as irrelevant when she used question time to sarcastically ask Mr Dowson who he represented in the community.
“We do this for the community,” Mr Dowson told the 50 guests at the Orient launch of the 44-page book that included updates on the defamation case against Cr Hannah Fitzhardinge (www.streetwisemedia.com.au).
The Labor mayor publicly called out as ‘racist’ Mr Dowson after he wrote to councillors to raise concerns over ‘divisive and disgraceful’ plans for the 200th anniversary celebrations in 2029. The offensive posts published during National Reconciliation Week on her ratepayer-subsidised social media have since been removed.
The West End heritage advocate and historian said Ms Fitzhardinge’s posts were not only personal, but political. Part of her local government mayoral campaign.
Mr Dowson said though three years late the book is built on and referenced against decades of work already completed and documented by heritage experts in WA. Importantly, the Society has documented thousands of heritage properties, its detailed inventory of significant Freo residences one of the largest in Australia.
Many of the Society’s members including Mr Dowson have been elected to council.
The formation of the Society was inspired partly by the early work of Fremantle’s first historian Robert Hitchcock who featured in the April 2022 edition of StreetWise (https://streetwisemedia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Streetwise-Magazine-Issue-19.pdf).
“He wrote about the people who lived in the houses, worked in the factories, who worked in the shipping business which was his main reason for living in Fremantle as a businessman.”
The Society continues to work closely with the Army Museum, WA Maritime Museum and other historical groups committed to good local planning and public use of Fremantle’s unique built environment.
Mr Dowson said there are 3000 archaeological sites in Fremantle including five Aboriginal heritage sites, none recorded at Arthur’s Head described by the WA Heritage Council as one of the most significant colonial sites in Australia.
“Arthur Head is a multi-layered treasure,” he told guests. Aboriginal, colonial, military, all in one place visited by 100,000 people each year.
Mr Dowson said Cr Fitzhardinge wanted to hand it back to the State Government because it was a drain on ratepayers. Now running for mayor, the elected member wants to reactivate and rename neglected Arthur Head to its Indigenous ‘Manjaree’ and strike a ‘treaty’ with the Whadjuk Aboriginal Corporation by 2029.

Building culture

‘The buildings of Fremantle only have meaning if they are associated with the people who lived and worked within them’ – The Fremantle Society: 50 years of serving and saving Fremantle 1972 – 2022’.

THE Fremantle Society never shied away from a battle which included facing off with Bondy who wanted to build a 13-storey glass tower next to then King’s Square. When the Society objected, the late president Les Lauder received, “a headless red rooster on his doorstep”.
The Society’s first meeting was on December 6 when 250 people met in the Town Hall to discuss ways to save Fremantle from, “a single minded development-at-all-costs Council”. By 1975, it boasted 1100 members. The following year, the port authority closed the Round House, “as it can’t be bothered maintaining it”, the historic site overlooking Bathers Bay at the centre of the current dispute with Cr Fitzhardinge.
During the 1970s, the Society fought to save Victoria Hall, Fremantle Markets, the old fire station on Phillimore Street, Orient Hotel, closure of Fremantle to Perth rail link and even a highway down Henry Street.
By 1978, it convinced Canberra to give Fremantle’s old buildings, “a new lease of life”, as important assets to invest in, not a liability to be demolished.
“Having drifted for a few years in the 1980s,” Mr Dowson writes, a new purpose formed – to oppose a 600-yacht marina and 13-storey hotel in North Fremantle between the two bridges.
He adds: “The America’s Cup of 1987 in Fremantle saw huge amounts of money spent jazzing up the town, not all of it to good effect. The party was short lived. Afterwards the rents stayed up, as did massive overdraft rates of 22%, dropping Fremantle into a depressed state not long after the failed efforts to keep the Cup.”
In 1988, the 16-year-old Society was almost wound up until a new president, Society member Don Whittington, was elected in 1989.
The Society is lucky to even exist: “The Fremantle Society has often been criticised for trying to stop development, but it was always focused on stopping bad development.”
By the mid-1990s, the battle for Freo’s built heritage resumed with the Dockers which wanted to build change rooms at the northern end of Fremantle Oval, resulting in the demolition of Victoria Pavillion, “eventually the Dockers built on the southern end of the oval before departing Fremantle altogether to move to Cockburn”.
The Society also incorporated environmental concerns into its constitution; access to the river foreshore in North Fremantle, Cypress and Clontarf hills and industrial heritage sites such as the old South Fremantle power station in Cockburn.
In 2000, Mr Dowson proposed having Fremantle’s first courthouse of 1835 rebuilt on the original site of the largely devoid Arthur’s Head while battles continue to rage over height restrictions near the train station and proposed demolitions of the immigration building and CY O’Connor centre on Victoria Quay.
The Society also saved the Old Synagogue site from becoming apartments and blocking views to World Heritage-listed Fremantle Prison, the building, “now regarded as one of Fremantle’s finest dining venues and was chosen for the Society’s 50th anniversary dinner”.
Former mayor now Greens MP Brad Pettitt came and went, having pushed through changes to increase height limits on some sites, “at one time, seeking ‘unlimited height’”, and missed the opportunity to buy the old wool stores on Cantonment for $20 million.
“Eleven years later, developer Adrian Fini managed to buy it for just $7 million,” Mr Dowson writes, in what will be, “the largest private Fremantle development ever”, with the demolition of 30 per cent of heritage facades to make way for a three-storey apartment complex.
Mr Dowson said Dr Pettitt’s ‘revitalisation’ plans had failed and left the city with ‘oversized large’ boxes including Walylup Civic Centre (formerly Kings Square) whose cost has blown out to more than $65 million.
But for all its achievements, the future of this dedicated group is not guaranteed, “as the effort to maintain it seems to rely on a smaller and smaller dedicated group who don’t always have the skills to constantly be making detailed submissions on major developments. And apathy is rampant!”
The book is available from Mr Dowson at john.dowson@yahoo.com.
Additional stories at www.streetwisemedia.com.au.