Fremantle Arts Centre

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The Fremantle Arts Centre is an historic landmark building in Fremantle, Western Australia. It was built using convict labour between 1861 and 1868 as the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum and was also known as the Asylum for the Criminally Insane.

1 History
2 Ghosts
3 Current activities
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

The imposing building on six acres overlooking the harbour city was the largest public building constructed by convicts in the State after the Fremantle Prison which had been built in the 1850s. The design, in colonial gothic style was by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Edmund Henderson, the Comptroller-General of Convicts in Western Australia, and built to accommodate 50 people. Over the next thirty years a number of additions were incorporated, principally designed by government architect George Temple-Poole.

The Asylum continued to operate for its intended purpose through to the early 1900s, when following two suspicious deaths which provoked comment from the local press, the Government set up an enquiry which concluded with a recommendation that the building "...be demolished as unfit for purpose for which it is now used."^[1] Patients were then moved to alternative locations in the metropolitan area between 1901 and 1905.

The building was used shortly after for housing for homeless women and later as a midwifery school. Until World War II it was known as the Old Women's Home. During World War II it became the headquarters for the American armed services based in Western Australia, and after the war it was used for a time as an annexe of Fremantle Technical School.

In 1957, the State Education Department proposed its demolition in order to use the land as playing fields for the adjacent John Curtin High School. A public outcry and opposition campaign led by the Mayor of Fremantle, Sir Frederick Samson halted the demolition. After many years of lobbying for State and Federal government funding, a major restoration project commenced in 1970 and since 1972 it has housed the Western Australian Maritime Museum (now relocated to Victoria Quay), the Fremantle Arts Centre and the Immigration Museum.

[edit] Ghosts

The building is reputed to be haunted by several ghosts from its lunatic asylum days.

One of these is said to be a former female inmate who became deranged with grief after her daughter was abducted. She is believed to have jumped to her death from a first floor window. The woman's ghost has apparently been seen throughout the building while she searches for her daughter.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Current activities

The Centre today runs a cultural program which includes exhibitions of contemporary visual art and craft, creative arts courses and free music concerts on Sunday afternoons. The Centre participates in local arts festivals and hosts the bi-annual Perth Writer's Festival.

Funding is received from the City of Fremantle, ArtsWA and the Australia Council.