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Bid to make Fremantle Museum & Arts Centre a UN World Heritage site

THE City of Fremantle is pushing to have the Fremantle Museum & Arts Centre listed as a United Nations World Heritage site, following a recent council decision.

It comes in the wake of Federal Heritage Minister Peter Garrett nominating Fremantle Prison for UN World Heritage-listing, as one of 11 outstanding examples of convict sites across Australia.

With the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) delaying its assessment of the sites until 2009, the City of Fremantle will now encourage Mr Garrett to add the Fremantle Museum & Arts Centre to the nominations.

Other World Heritage-listed sites include the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge, Statue of Liberty, Moscow’s Kremlin and Red Square, Belgium’s La Grand-Place and the Egyptian pyramids – and Fremantle Mayor Peter Tagliaferri believes the listing would be a major coup for the port city.

“If the nomination is accepted, there will be an even greater spotlight on Fremantle and it will also help to attract extra funding from the Federal Government,” he said.

“The combination of the Fremantle Museum & Arts Centre with Fremantle Prison, along with the other convict sites put forward by Mr Garrett, highlights a rich tapestry of history that is uniquely Australian.

“We have engaged heritage consultants who believe there is a strong case for including the Fremantle Museum & Arts Centre as part of the current World Heritage nomination for Australian convict sites.

“They also believe it stands up to scrutiny as having ‘outstanding universal significance’ as one of the best-preserved former asylums in Australia, while highlighting another aspect of the convict system.”

The historic building was originally built as a psychiatric hospital by convict labour between 1861 and 1868 and was the largest public building built by convicts, after the Fremantle Prison in the 1850s.

Designed in a colonial gothic style, a number of additions were incorporated over the next 30 years. After the hospital closed, it was used as housing for homeless women and then as a midwifery school.

During World War II, it became headquarters for US armed services and then used as an annexe of Fremantle Technical School.

In 1957, the Education Department proposed demolition of the building – but a public outcry and opposition campaign from Fremantle Mayor Frederick Samson and Professor George Seddon helped save it from being destroyed.

A major restoration project began in 1970 and, since 1972, the Fremantle Museum & Arts Centre has been a major cultural hub. It was added to WA’s State Heritage Register in 1993.