Lathlain history: a lord mayor’s name, the Demons and a lost station

Lathlain was a name people used for thirty years before it became official in 1981. It came from a football ground, and the ground was named after a mayor of Perth.

How Lathlain got its name

Landgate says the suburb takes its name from Lathlain Park oval, which honours Sir William Lathlain, Mayor of Perth from 1918 to 1923 and from 1930 to 1932, and a member of the Legislative Council from 1926 to 1932. The City of Perth proposed renaming parts of Victoria Park and Rivervale as Lathlain, and the name was approved in 1981. The Town of Victoria Park’s records agree, and its timeline adds that people had used the name since the 1950s.

Before the suburb

The Town’s local history timeline places Victoria Park in the territory of Beeloo Munday, and records that the fording place near the Causeway was called Matta Gerup, meaning knee deep. In 1829 Henry Camfield was granted 1,000 acres opposite Claisebrook and named it Burrswood, the origin of the name Burswood that the Rivervale area carried until 1921.

The railway was laid past Victoria Park in 1892 and Victoria Park station first appears in a timetable in 1898. In October 1920 Peet and Co opened the Victoria Park Station Estate, selling quarter-acre blocks for £30 with £2 down and £1 a month.

How it grew

Many local street names were changed in 1918 to avoid duplicates, Gallipoli Street among them. Goddard Street, formerly Cambridge Road, was renamed on 6 September 1918 after Arthur Coombs Goddard, a stove maker from Forrest Street who enlisted at 19, was wounded at the Dardanelles on 12 May 1915 and died in Cairo on 26 May 1915, aged 20.

The suburb took shape after the Second World War. Lathlain Primary School opened in 1956, and Lathlain railway station opened on 2 May 1958. In November 1953 the Perth Football Club proposed moving to vacant land at Lathlain with the council’s support. Plans for a grandstand and clubrooms were finalised in June 1958, and on 11 July 1959 Lord Mayor Harry Howard opened the Lathlain Park football facilities.

The Carlisle-Lathlain Ladies Bowling Club formed in August 1960 and opened its clubhouse in February 1965. Lathlain station closed in October 1988, reopened in November after protests, and closed for good on 2 February 2003, after which it was demolished. A new Victoria Park station opened on 2 August 2008.

In March 2011 the council approved a master plan for Lathlain Park. In September 2014 it endorsed a lease for a West Coast Eagles headquarters and training base there, and in August 2015 the Prime Minister announced $10 million in federal funding for the Lathlain Precinct Redevelopment Project. Construction began in 2017 in partnership with the Town, and the main building opened in June 2019.

Places that tell the story

Lathlain Park is still the Perth Football Club’s ground, now shared with the West Coast Eagles at Mineral Resources Park, where the precinct includes two ovals and the Waalitj Foundation.

The Town’s review of its Local Heritage Survey lists three Lathlain places: a residence on the corner of Gallipoli and Staines streets, a stone house on the corner of Salem and Gallipoli streets, and Willowdene at 14 Cookham Road.

Lathlain today

The 2021 Census counted 3,699 people in Lathlain. The station has gone, but the football ground that gave the suburb its name is still in use.

More about Lathlain

For what Lathlain is like to live in now, read our Lathlain suburb profile. If you own a property in Lathlain and are thinking about selling, start with buyers for your property.

Sources

• Landgate: Perth and surrounds suburb names (archived 2022)
• Town of Victoria Park Library: Lathlain
• Town of Victoria Park Local History Collection Timeline (3rd edition, 2016)
• Town of Victoria Park Library: Goddard Street
• Town of Victoria Park: Local Heritage Survey supplementary list
• West Coast Eagles: Mineral Resources Park
• ABS 2021 Census QuickStats: Lathlain

Top image: Lathlain Park, 2023. Photo: DaHuzyBru, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dates and names are drawn from the sources above. Where sources differ, we have said so or given an approximate date.

By Key Performance Real Estate, 338 Beaufort Street, Perth