East Perth history: cemeteries, power and a riverside reinvention

Few Perth suburbs have changed as much as East Perth. Once the city’s industrial edge, it is now one of its most sought-after riverside apartment areas.

Before the suburb

The City of Vincent records a registered Aboriginal site by the river near the Windan Bridge as a Noongar meeting place and camp site. The National Trust describes the East Perth Cemeteries as being at Martellup on Whadjuk Noongar Country.

How it grew

The first land grants went to Walter Boyd Andrews and Alfred Hawes Stone. The railway arrived in the early 1880s and East Perth station, now Claisebrook, opened in 1883. Estates were subdivided in the 1890s.

For most of the 20th century East Perth was an industrial and railway district, the site of the power station and a locomotive depot.

Places that tell the story

The East Perth Cemeteries were Perth’s burial ground from 1829 until they closed in 1899. St Bartholomew’s Church was built there in 1871 as a mortuary chapel.

The East Perth Power Station began operating in the 1910s and ran until 1981.

The WACA Ground opened in 1893 on land first set aside for botanical purposes. Its first grandstand was built in 1895.

The reinvention

The East Perth Redevelopment Authority was set up in 1991 to transform the old industrial land, and the Graham Farmer Freeway opened in 2000. The result is the Claisebrook and riverside neighbourhoods buyers know today, with apartments and townhouses along the water and the WACA close by.

More about East Perth

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

Sources

• City of Vincent: East Perth history
• National Trust: East Perth Cemeteries
• inHerit: East Perth Power Station
• inHerit: WACA Ground

Top image: Claise Brook, East Perth, photographed by Alfred Hawes Stone in 1861. Photo: Alfred Hawes Stone, Public domain, 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