Canvas Town

DISAPPEARED

Canvas Town or ‘‘The Blocks’’ was situated on the South side of Marmion St opposite what is now the East Fremantle Football Oval and stretched to Holland St.

There was another camp next to canvas town where Aboriginal people were living in deplorable conditions.

“'nothing compared with the days that followed the gold rush from 1892 to 1895…The inter-state ships were crammed to capacity and brought thousands of men who later sent for their wives and families. In 1895 there was scarcely a house in that older portion of East Fremantle bounded by East-street, Marmion street, Silas-street and Canning road, known then and for years after as Plympton…It was then a forbidding limestone hill cut up into small building blocks of 40-feet frontage at an average price of £40, payable on terms. Tenements were built after working hours, on Saturday afternoons and on Sundays…To prepare for the arriving families, any form of building material was requisitioned; Packing cases, kerosene tins flattened out and galvanised iron were in general use until more permanent abodes were erected. Sunday was indeed a day of labour; from dawn till dusk one heard hammering and nailing in all directions…Many used the native limestone for outside walls, but brick was a rarity. Others solved the difficulty temporarily by pitching huge tents in the backyard. One portion of old Plympton was aptly named "Canvas Town" and was situated in that portion of the municipality between the East Fremantle oval and Holland-street. The summers in "Canvas Town" would, to us, have been seasons of horror and fear, as the site was a sand patch, water was scarce, sanitation was of the most elementary description, and of transport to Fremantle there was none…(reference)

Messrs. W. S. and G. Pearse supplied water from the top of Malcolm-street as far east as Hubble street by means of a pump and water pipes laid on top of the ground at a weekly charge of 9d.

“'The plant for pumping the water, which is obtained upon one of the highest limestone hills in Plympton from a depth of 150ft’’ (reference)