East Fremantle, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia
The East Fremantle Town Hall, located on Canning Highway.
|Population||6,697 (2006 census)|
|• Density||2,160/km2 (5,600/sq mi)|
|Area||3.1 km2 (1.2 sq mi)|
|Location||17 km (11 mi) from Perth|
|LGA(s)||Town of East Fremantle|
|State electorate(s)||Bicton / Fremantle|
East Fremantle (nicknamed East Freo in Western Australian vernacular) is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) south-west of the central business district. The suburb is mainly residential, and is coterminous with the Town of East Fremantle local government area.
Previously serving as an outer, rural area of Fremantle, most of the present-day suburb was originally developed in the late 1890s and early 1900s as a result of the Western Australian gold rushes. Further development occurred in the late 1940s and 1950s to provide dwellings for new immigrants. Two major arterial roads – Canning Highway and Stirling Highway – pass through the suburb, which is also bounded to the north by the Swan River.
Prior to European settlement, the Noongar people obtained food and drinking water from the river edges and open grassy areas. Shortly after the establishment of the Swan River Colony, a track linking Perth to Fremantle was documented through the area.
In April 1833, a report spread that a "landing of 200 natives" had speared the ferryman, John Weavell, and his wife at their residence near Preston Point, which "brought nearly every male inhabitant of Fremantle to my house, some with guns without locks, some with guns without ammunition, others with ammunition without guns, some with pistols, others with bludgeons". It was later reported in the Perth Gazette that this was entirely false, with the Gazette decrying the "extravagant and absurd statements that are daily got up".
Initially, the area was dominated by agricultural activity, but after the 1890s gold rush, it became increasingly residential and suburban in character. The first area to develop was Plympton, in the southwest of the suburb, where workers' cottages were established largely between 1890-1910. Next were Woodside and Richmond in the south and north, which today contain many brick and tile homes dating from 1900-1940. The Preston Point area developed in the 1950s.
East Fremantle is a residential suburb, relying on neighbourhood shopping centres in the area for daily needs, and Fremantle for other commercial services. The suburb contains a community centre, two small private hospitals and two primary schools. Each year in December, the suburb hosts the East Fremantle Festival in George Street, located in the historic district of Plympton.
In September 1910, at the urging of The Sunday Times, a South Swan Railway League was formed, calling for the establishment of a railway line running south of the Swan River from Fremantle to Guildford, where it would then join the existing Eastern Railway.
East Fremantle contains the crossroads between Canning Highway and Stirling Highway. The suburb is served by a range of buses from Fremantle train station, by which residents can link to the CircleRoute and to the Perth CBD. All services are operated by the Public Transport Authority.
East Fremantle is an established suburb with two quite different booths – the southern half (East Fremantle PS), nearer Fremantle, strongly supports Labor at both federal and state elections; while the northern half (Richmond PS), alongside the Swan River, supports the more conservative Liberal Party at both levels of government.
East Fremantle contains one state-run primary school, Richmond Primary School, founded in 1921. The school comprises an on-site kindergarten, catering for 40 students, an off-site pre-primary, catering for 54 students, and the main primary school, catering for 340 students. As of semester one, 2011, the school has a total enrolment of 407 students. Richmond is occasionally utilised by the local community, and shares the hosting of an annual fête with other local schools. East Fremantle Primary School, established in 1898, is located in the neighbouring suburb of Fremantle, on the southern border of Marmion Street, just outside the boundary between Fremantle and East Fremantle. Most of East Fremantle is located within the Richmond Primary local-intake area, with the exclusion of the Plympton ward, which falls into East Fremantle Primary's intake area. The suburb is shared between the catchment zones of three secondary schools: John Curtin College of the Arts, in Fremantle, Melville Senior High School, in Melville, and South Fremantle Senior High School, in Beaconsfield. Both Richmond Primary and East Fremantle Primary are used as polling booths by the Western Australian Electoral Commission.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics (25 October 2007). "East Fremantle (State Suburb)". 2006 Census QuickStats. Retrieved 2008-10-05.
- "GRAND ENCOUNTER AT PRESTON POINT" – The Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal. 13 April 1833, p. 3. Retrieved from Trove, 29 November 2011.
- Town of East Fremantle (17 August 2004). "History and Heritage". Archived from the original on 22 August 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-11.
- Department of Land Information. StreetSmart Perth Street Directory (54th ed.). West Australian Newspapers Ltd. pp. Map 430–431. ISBN 978-0-909439-67-5.
- "THE SOUTH SWAN LINE." – The Sunday Times. 25 September 1910, p. 7. Retrieved from Trove, 29 November 2011.
- Department of Education. Richmond Primary School – det.wa.edu.au. Retrieved 29 November 2011. No direct link available. To navigate to the desired page, search "Richmond" and click on the first link.
- Department of Land Information. Local-intake map – richmondps.wa.edu.au. Retrieved 29 November 2011. This map is based on a written description of the local-intake area (LIA) for the school as published in the WA Government Gazette.
- "School Education Act 1999 – Declaration of local-intake areas for schools with secondary students" (PDF). Western Australia Government Gazette. 29 November 2011. p. 5861–5862.
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