WARail & telegraph
Claremont (WA)
Pensioner guards farmed the swamp edge; the railway made it a suburb.
1881Railway reaches Butler’s Swamp
WHAT STARTED IT
In the 1850s pensioner guards were given small lots between Freshwater Bay and Butler’s Swamp, and convicts from a nearby depot built the Perth–Fremantle road. A railway platform at Butler’s Swamp in the early 1880s gave the scattered settlement a new centre.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
Landowner James Morrison named his estate Claremont, after his wife Clara and the hilly ground, and the station carried that name by 1883. A roads board was elected in 1893, and with about 1,700 residents Claremont became a municipality in 1898.
TURNING POINTS
1881The Fremantle–Guildford railway opens; tenders for a platform at Butler’s Swamp follow in September.
1883A timetable of 1 May lists the Butler’s Swamp stop as Claremont.
1893Ratepayers elect the first Claremont Roads Board on 17 May.
1898The Municipality of Claremont is formed.
1954The council adopts a scheme to turn Butler’s Swamp into Lake Claremont.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A western riverside suburb of about 9,200 people that includes the Claremont Showground. Butler’s Swamp survives as Lake Claremont.