Fremantle Cemetery and Superintendent's Cottage

Child Places

• 17455 Bon Scott's Memorial

Statement of Significance

The Fremantle Cemetery &Superintendents Cottage are significant for the following reasons:

Historic Value: Established after the phasing out of the old Fremantle cemetery.

Social Value: Contains grave sites of early Melville residents, as well as other characters and identities from around Perth.

Authenticity: The cottage itself is intact and continues to accommodate the cemetery management and staff. Continues to serve the community as a cemetery administration office.

Cemetery and House – Fremantle, a multi-denominational public burial ground located on Carrington Street, Palmyra, within the City of Melville Local Government area, is a place of considerable cultural heritage significance for the following reasons: the place is historically important as an operating Cemetery, established in 1898, where the first burial took place in July 1899 following closure of two early cemeteries at Alma Street and Skinner Street in Fremantle;
the place has social significance as the burial ground for people of various denominations and ethnic backgrounds, drawn from a wide circuit within the Metropolitan Region; and is important to the families and associates of people
interred in the Cemetery; the historic gravesites and associated memorials commemorating people of high-profile or relevance to the community, are significant for social importance within the context of a burial ground which contains the gravesites of people from all walks of life and different ethnic groups; and includes seafarers and stevedores and members of their families,
relevant to the Port of Fremantle and associated residential districts; the place has a high degree of aesthetic significance as a consequence of the gravesite memorials which demonstrate differences in denominational practices over the period of time since the Cemetery was established; the place is relevant in physical presentation demonstrating the current practices associated with burial, cremation and Mausoleum interment, together with the Memorial Gardens, Gardens of Remembrance and Lawn Areas for burials and interment; the built elements within the Cemetery, of recent origin, are significant in demonstrating a high level of architectural excellence – the West and East Chapels of the Crematorium, the Mausoleum, the Café and the Assembly Pavilions; the original fabric of the 1901 Administration building, a former Caretaker’s Lodge, is significant for its characteristic Federation Bungalow style and materials; the early wrought iron gates at the main Carrington Street entrance are significant as part of the original Cemetery fabric; and the mature tree stock throughout the site is significant for environmental reasons, together with the remnant indigenous bushland towards the eastern sector of the site.
Elements within the Cemetery site which are assessed to have little if any cultural heritage significance are the Works Depot and Tritton Lodge.

SIGNIFICANT ITEMS:

Gravesite memorials and built elements as noted above in the Statement of Significance.

Physical Description

Modest cottage typical of buildings in Fremantle from this period it has a verandah on two sides.

Cemetery and House – Fremantle is an operational cemetery which dates from its inception in 1898 and the first burial in 1899, and demonstrates the representative layout and burial practices for cemeteries dating from the nineteenth century up to the present day. The Cemetery is a burial ground serving the Fremantle and Melville City Municipalities, and, as a public
cemetery, those from further afield whose families chose the place for burial or cremation of family members.
The Cemetery is sited in the Palmyra locality, now part of the Local Government area of the City of Melville. The site is bordered on the north by Leach Highway, on the west (the main entrance to the Cemetery) by Carrington Street and on the
south by Sainsbury Road.
The Cemetery now incorporates modern burial practices as well as the traditional separate religious denominational burial areas where gravesites are marked by elaborate grave markings in a wide display of stone, marble and metalwork –
headstones, crosses, statuary and so-on – within a stone, concrete or cast iron railing delineating the borders of the burial plots. Many gravesites incorporate more than one family burial. Unlike gravesites in Karrakatta Cemetery, for example, burial plots in Fremantle Cemetery are side-by-side without spaces between graves, and head-to-head without spaces between the two adjoining rows of graves.
New late twentieth century burial practices have been incorporated into the Cemetery including a Mausoleum and Crematoria Chapels, as well as the continuing use of denominational burials areas where Lawn Areas have been established where only headstones mark the burial sites of coffins and there are no separate burial plot borders or railings but instead mown lawn, introduced as a means to improve maintenance and to present a more sophisticated and tidy cemetery appearance. Other new burial practices are accommodated in Memorial Gardens and Gardens of Remembrance where cremated remains are
interred in special feature walls or in gardens laid out with lawn areas for easy access within the planted Garden Areas – cremated remains in these areas are identified by small metal plaques recording the name and other relevant details of the deceased.

History

The Governor in Council on 15 June 1898 formed the Trustees of the Fremantle Cemetery. The Fremantle Cemetery Board comprised ten members who met for the first time on 24 June 1898 in the Fremantle Town Hall.

The Cemetery site fronting onto Carrington Street in the present suburb of Palmyra within the City of Melville Local Government area, was declared a Cemetery on 28 October 1898. The first burial took place on 2 July 1899. Freehold title of the Cemetery site, at that time an area of 49.6 hectares, was granted to the Trustees on 23 January 1900.

The new Fremantle Cemetery replaced the “Old Cemetery” at Alma Street, Fremantle, which operated from 1831 to 1895, and the “New Cemetery” nearby at Skinner Street, Fremantle, which operated from 1852 to 1899. These two sites are now Government sites in use by the Fremantle Primary School and the oval of the former John Curtin High School. Ninety headstones were removed from the Skinner Street Cemetery in 1931 and relocated to the Fremantle Cemetery.
Remains uncovered were removed and reburied at that time.

Many former high-profile personalities were buried in the Fremantle Cementer, notably Charles Yelverton O'Connor, Lionel Samson, Sir Frederick Samson, Henry Vincent, Joseph Johns, the Bateman brothers, Joseph Allen, and Bon Scott.

In 1959, a Crematorium and adjoining Chapel were constructed at the Fremantle Cemetery as a new option for cremation at the Cemetery.

The Caretaker’s Lodge, a former house, was constructed in 1901, and now accommodates the Cemetery Administration offices at the main entrance to the Cemetery. The former Caretaker’s Lodge was upgraded internally and adapted for use as the Cemetery Administration offices in 2003/04, under the direction of architect Walter Hunter, for the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board. A Management Plan was prepared for the Cemetery in the mid 1980s by architects Bernard Seeber Pty. Ltd. That Plan remains operational today. A new residence, Tritton Lodge, for the current resident administrator, was erected adjacent to and south of the Lodge in the 1990s.

On 1 July 2003, the Fremantle Cemetery changed ownership and management from the Fremantle Cemetery Board to the Metropolitan Cemeteries Board, the current owners and managers.

Condition

Sound.

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update

Disclaimer

This information is provided voluntarily as a public service. The information provided is made available in good faith and is derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate. However, the information is provided solely on the basis that readers will be responsible for making their own assessment of the matters discussed herein and are advised to verify all relevant representations, statements and information.