Doubleview history: two views, borrowed Perth street names and soldiers’ houses

Doubleview takes its name from a view in two directions, to the ocean in the west and the Darling Range in the east. It was subdivided in 1910 and 1916, but most of it was built after the Second World War.

How Doubleview got its name

Landgate says the name comes from the views from the higher ground, to the coast in the west and to the hills and the city in the east, and that the developers Dudley and Dwyer first used it in about 1930. The City of Stirling gives the same reason, describing views of the Indian Ocean to the west and the Darling Range and Perth to the east, and still lists Ewen Street and the water tower on Princess Street as lookout points.

Before the suburb

The City of Stirling’s thematic history places this part of the coastal plain in the country of the Mooro people, within Wadjak country, with a Nyoongar trail running from the Swan River along a chain of coastal lakes to Yanchep.

The first recorded European occupant was a dairy farmer, John Daniel Manning, who took up land here in 1895 but did not develop it.

How it grew

In 1910 the Perth real estate agent Charles Edgar Stoneman subdivided the northern section. Lots sold slowly. The subdivision’s streets carried the same names as streets in central Perth, and the City’s history notes that many investors were led to believe they were buying in the city centre.

M. L. Connor subdivided the southern portion in 1916, and in 1926 the developers Dudley and Dwyer bought the unsold lots in both parts. Even so, the land stayed largely empty until after the Second World War.

Growth came when the government provided houses for returned soldiers in the northern section. The thematic history describes the post-war Housing Commission houses of this period as timber or fibro, built to a shared scale and setback, and names the northern section of Doubleview, with Coolbinia and Nollamara, among the suburbs that followed in the late 1940s. Later houses were brick and tile, and the southern section filled in with 1960s and International-style houses.

In 1962 the Dominican Sisters opened Siena Girls’ High School in Doubleview. It became Newman Siena in 1977 and the Newman College Doubleview Campus in 1995, and the campus closed in 2004. From the late 1990s, infill housing became the main form of new building in the suburb.

Places that tell the story

Bennett Park is one of the eight open spaces the City of Stirling counts in Doubleview, and the older shopping strips on Sackville Terrace and Scarborough Beach Road still serve the suburb.

Doubleview today

The 2021 Census counted 9,205 people in Doubleview. Underground power is being installed across the suburb, and the free SurfCAT bus now links it with Scarborough Beach and Stirling Station.

More about Doubleview

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

Sources

• Landgate: Perth and surrounds suburb names (archived 2022)
• City of Stirling: Doubleview suburb page
• City of Stirling: A Thematic History of the City of Stirling (2018)
• Newman College: Archives
• Catholic Education WA: Holy Rosary School Doubleview
• ABS 2021 Census QuickStats: Doubleview

Top image: Houses on Ewen Street, Doubleview, 2023. Photo: -wuppertaler, CC BY 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