Reading: Fremantle Museums: WA Maritime Museum, HMAS Ovens Submanrine, WA Shipwreck Galleries, WA Army Museum
We loved our visit to the HMAS Ovens Submarine. Our go guide was energetic, enthusiastic and knowledgeable. HMAS Ovens was decommissioned in western Australia on 1 December 1995. During her 26 year animation she travelled over of 410,000 nautical miles. This Oberon Class gravy boat was built by the Scott Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Greenock, Scotland. HMAS Ovens is 89.9 metres with a inundate focal ratio more than 15 knots. Her mottto was ‘Silence is Golden ‘ and she was launched at Greenock on 4 December 1967, commissioned on 18 April 1969 when she began her maiden over ocean trip to Australia arriving in Sydney on 17 October 1969. This impressive vessel gives you an estimate what of what it would have been like on control panel during the Cold War. It ‘s not a glamorous as you may think, being a submariner … they put their lives at risk every moment they ‘re below the surface of the ocean. incredible. HMAS OVENS is an settle alongside the Maritime Museum and is open for tours. HMAS Ovens is an Oberon class submarine once of the Royal Australian Navy ( RAN ). She was the beginning submarine to be preserved in Australia as a museum ship. From the Round House you can see the indian Ocean. You get a perfect horizon of Bathers Beach below the cliffs to the left field and cruise ships coming into harbor on the right ! Wonderful. The return of keeping clocks ‘in time ‘ was only solved by the english Clockmaker John Harrison created the marine chronometer which enabled ships at sea to ‘carry ‘ the right clock with them, after leaving view ( and sound ) of the shore. ( More about John Harrison ). The Fremantle Volunteer Heritage Guides ( FVHG ) raise the flags each day, participate in the discharge of the 1 O’Clock cannon. This practice began in the early 1900s as a method of keeping everyone ‘s watches aligned ( and consequently keeping ‘order ‘ in the expanding colony. ) The Round House is located in what is now known as Fremantle ‘s West end, in the Arthur Head Precinct on a promontory overlooking the river mouthpiece with continuous views of Cockburn Sound. early buildings on Arthur Head included the courthouse, cottages and two lighthouses. It had eight cells and a prison guard ‘s residence, which all opened up into a cardinal court. It was belated used as a home for the head constable, his wife and their 10 children. It is now a democratic tourist attraction enjoying bird’s-eye views. The Round House is the oldest remaining public building in western Australia open in 1831. It was built as a imprison / jail and was used until 1886 .
Fremantle Prison
The Fremantle Prison has won the 2011 Western Australian Heritage Awards for :
~ Outstanding Contribution by a
Public/Private Organisation
~ Outstanding Heritage Tourism Product.
‘ Fremantle Prison is a former Australian prison located in The Terrace, Fremantle, in Western Australia, approximately 200m east of the Fremantle Markets.
The 60,000 m² ( 15 acres ) site includes the prison, gatehouse, perimeter walls, cottages, tunnels, and prisoner art. The formidable prison was built by convict labor in the 1850s, and transferred to the colonial government in 1886 for use as a Fremantle Gaol ( Fremantle jail ) for locally-sentenced prisoners. Though it is called the ‘Fremantle Prison ‘, it is no longer used for keeping prisoners. Wikipedia
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Fremantle Prison tours available : ‘Great Escapes ‘ – ‘Tunnels ‘ – ‘Torchlight ‘ – ‘Doing Time ‘
OPEN : Daily. The Prison Gallery, featuring prisoner art is open to the public from 10.00am to 5.00pm daily. admission to the veranda is barren. CLOSED : good Friday and Christmas Day. Entrance Fees : spare entry to Gatehouse, Visitor Centre, Prison Gallery, Gift Shop and Convict Cafe. Tours are individually priced although an “ All Tour Pass ” is available .
Address : The Terrace, Fremantle, WA 6160
Telephone : 9336 9200
Website : Fremantle Prison
Fremantle Prison History:
“ Fremantle Prison was constructed soon after the arrival of the convict ship Scindian in 1850. The Swan River Colony was settled by exempt settlers in 1829. In 1849, the farmers petitioned the colonial authority to request skilled convicts be sent from the british government. The beginning ship with 75 prisoners aboard arrived even before confirmation of the request was received .
Edmund Henderson found on arrival that the township was unprepared and arranged impermanent accommodation for the convicts at the harbor chief ‘s warehouse ( nowadays the Esplanade Hotel ). Under steering from Henderson, James Manning and Henry Wray supervised the construction of the prison using convict labor from limestone quarried on-site. construction began in 1851 and was completed in 1859. The first prisoners were moved there in 1855. ” [ wikipedia : construction ]
“ Fremantle Prison is presently the best continue convict-built prison in the nation and became the first construction in western Australia to be listed on the australian National Heritage List .
The australian Federal Heritage Minister, Senator Ian Campbell, stated that it would be included in a nominating speech of eleven convict areas to become World Heritage Sites. policy dictates the prison is used for the benefit of the community without damaging the fabric of the locate. Since 1992, the prison has operated as a inheritance museum, and by 2005 the prison was attracting more than 130,000 visitors every class. ” [ wikipedia : fremantle prison ]
Moondyne Joe
Western Australian Bushranger
This is the only know photograph of Joseph Bolitho Johns ( 1830-1900 ), better known as the westerly Australian bushranger Moondyne Joe. It depicts Johns holding a tomahawk and wearing a kangaroo skin cape. [ wikisource ]
Although not distinct by outbound appearance from the hundreds of early cells in Fremantle Gaol, there is one cell which has a especial interest because of the picturesque with which it is associated. ‘Moondyne Joe ‘ was, possibly, Western Australia ‘s most note bushranger .
He was not an lawless of the bloodthirsty type, such as the Kelly ‘s, Steve Hart, and the score of others who killed and plundered on the eastern english of the celibate during last century, and was ill-famed more for his prison breaking exploits than for his crimes .
It was because the authorities found it impossible to keep Moondyne behind prison walls that a cell in Fremantle Gaol was specially prepared for him, and it remains today as it was when he occupied it many years ago.
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The walls of the confine space are heavily timbered and appear to have been laboriously carved and patterned, but is the triple-barred window which is of special concern. Moondyne laughed at average locks and bars and prison walls, but when he first saw the cell prepared for him after many escapes, he must have realised that he would never be able to break through the bars which covered the minor window space. [ wikisource ]
Famous Fremantle Prison Events
The Catalpa
luminary prisoners include members of the Fenian Brotherhood. Sixty-two Fenian ‘s arrived at Fremantle in 1867. many were pardoned over the years ; however, in 1876 six managed to escape and fled aboard the Catalpa whaleboat to New York. [ wikipedia : persona ] [ wikipedia : fremantle prisoners ]
Escape!
Brenden James Abbott ( born 8 May 1962 ) is an australian bank robber who was branded the Postcard Bandit by the western Australian Police to attract news media attention. The bank robberies he has been attributed as mastermind, yielded a much as A $ 6 million, though a significant proportion of that sum was unrecoverable. The Fremantle Prison escape that earned Abbott his lifelong notoriety as a criminal flair, and ultimately led to his brand as “ The Postcard Bandit, ” occurred on 24 November 1989. Abbott and another inpatient escaped by jumping from the ceiling, over the high limestone prison walls, in uniform exchangeable to Fremantle Prison guards ‘ that Abbott had sewn in the prison tailorshop. [ wikipedia : BrendenAbbot ]
