Cliff Street
A BRIEF HISTORY OF CLIFF STREET
Cliff St in the 1850s was a busy thoroughfare connecting the sea front jetty (at the south) with the river jetty (to the north) and many businesses were located along the route. The street was paved in 1858 with hand-tolled Yorkshire flagstones by sappers of the Royal Engineers and then completed by private contract after the sappers were needed elsewhere and convicts were not skilled enough for the job. To meet the expense, dog licences, poundage fees and fines were raised by the Town Trust. Later in 1897 the Mayor of Fremantle reported that “The Fremantle markets had been started, and steps taken to pave High Street in jarrah blocks from Cliff Street to the town hall” (reference). With the opening of the river harbour in 1897 the glory of Cliff-street began to fade. The Customs House, Post Office and shipping offices moved nearer to the new centre of gravity, and the old street now lacked the business air that pervaded it in the eighties and early nineties (reference).
View Corner High and Cliff St, Fremantle by W. J. Beisley, Western Mail 17 March 1899, p 29
Licence to store dangerous goods (kerosene), paid by Lionel Samson, Cliff St 1871, (courtesy Battye Library Samson archives)
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old Fremantle Post office, Cliff St 1899, Kalgoorlie Western Argus 2 Feb 1899 p 25
Buildings of Cliff Street
