Pakenham Street was named after Lt H. I. Pakenham, a third Leiutenant, serving on HMS Challenger.

on June 2 1829 at daylight Lieutenant Packenham was ordered to Garden Island to fly a flag from the top of the high mound if any ship were in sight…At 8 a.m. Captain Fremantle saw the flag go up and he at once lowered a boat and proceeded to Carnac Island where he saw a ship trying to enter Gage Roads from Rottnest…He now found that it was the Parmelia, and that Captain Stirling was piloting her, but before he could warn him they had run on to a sandbank and were stuck fast. (reference)

It is a street of Federation Free Classical and Federation Warehouse buildings dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in response to the gold rush period of the 1880s – 1890s.

Packenham St was also the street which held Chinese Laundries.

2 October 1902 CHINESE LAUNDRY RANSACKED… at the Fremantle Police Court this morning, Richard Williams was charged with stealing two parcels containing clothing from Hong Wah, a Chinese laundryman. Tbe police evidence showed that the accused stole into the plaintiff's premises in Packenham-street and ran off with two parcels in which were newly-washed clothes. The accused said he did not know anything about the affair, and would therefore be obliged to plead guilty. "It must have been a drunken lark," said the accused, " for I would never think of doing such a thing in my right senses." He further remarked that he was a commercial traveller, but had been drinking heavily for some time. Accused was sentenced to seven days' imprisonment with hard labor. (reference)

Packenham Street was also known as a ‘plague-centre’ in 1906:

A boy named Donald Gilmore, aged three years, living in Packenham-street, close to the house in which Fiori, the Italian victim, lived, contracted the disease, and died yesterday. (reference)

Another case of plague was reported at Fremantle on Sunday afternoon. The patient is Margaret Lee, who resided at a restaurant in Packenham-street. In addition to the patient, 30 contacts have been ordered to Woodman's Point. (reference)

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