Fremantle Cemetery - Heritage trail

Now there’s cemetery’s and there’s cemetery, this is the biggest cemetery I’ve ever sen ,the cemetery occupies 46 hectares of land  I didn’t realise Fremantle had that many people to fill it since 1898, the variety of religions, nationalities is insane.
It’s equipped with a crematorium and three chapels. Offers a wide range of monumental and lawn burial areas and memorial gardens and the opening of the Fremantle Mausoleum in 2005 has further expanded the range of options available to families, there’s the vault ,a below ground burial vaults are available at Fremantle for those who are seeking a below ground entombment option.oh and there’s a cafe!
We were here to walk the heritage trail and I was on the hunt for Ronald Belford “Bon” Scott and since visiting the fremantle prison the unmarked graves of Martha Rendell & Eric Edgar Cooke.

Fremantle Cemetery was established in 1898.
The first burial took place at Fremantle Cemetery on 2 July 1899.  For its first six decades, the cemetery was used only for burials, until a crematorium and adjoining chapel were constructed in 1959.  Since its opening, over 42,000 burials and 66,000 cremations have taken place at Fremantle Cemetery. Now if you do the maths? Say $6000 for a funeral x that by 108,000 , that’s a whopping ,tax free turnover of 396,042,000 million! and that’s not including the head stone! Now if that’s not ringing bells? Come On!? I’m surprised they didn’t charge entry!?

The Fremantle Cemetery Heritage Walk Trail encapsulates a sample of Fremantle’s history, passing by the gravesites of notable and notorious Western Australians who all, in their own way, contributed to the rich heritage of Fremantle.  

Ronald Belford “Bon” Scott was the lead singer with legendary Australian rock group AC/DC from 1974 until 1980. His death after a heavy drinking bout in London left him a tragic hero. His memorial has become a cultural landmark and continues to be one of the most frequently visited sites at Fremantle Cemetery. It is listed with the National Trust of Australia as a historic site.
Bon Scott moved to Melbourne from the Scottish village of Kirriemuir. When he was six, the family moved to Fremantle. He attended John Curtin High School and began his musical education at 11 with the Fremantle Pipe Band. In the early 1970s Bon appeared on vocals and drums with Fremantle groups The Spektors and The Valentines, and with the band Fraternity in Adelaide.
In 1974 a motorcycle accident interrupted Scott’s musical career and he found casual work in the music industry working for Vince Lovegrove, his co-vocalist for The Valentines. Lovegrove introduced Scott to a small band called AC/DC who were looking for a new lead singer. Bon was able to persuade the band to take him on as their front man. His distinctive, hard-edged voice, rebellious presence on stage and song-writing skills helped to take the band to the top of the charts, gaining local and international success with iconic albums such as High Voltage, Let There Be Rock, and Highway to Hell.
Each Christmas Bon would return to visit his parents, Chick and Isa Scott, at Spearwood to recuperate. The last time – in 1979 – it was apparent his health was suffering. When Bon died in 1980, the funeral at Fremantle Cemetery for one of the city’s favourite adopted sons was conducted in secret.

Martha Rendell (1871-1909) Convicted Child Murderer  
Details of the early life of Martha Rendell are sparse. It is known she left her husband and their several children in South Australia and came to Perth in her mid-thirties. Here she was instrumental in persuading carpenter Thomas Morris, who had known Rendell in Adelaide, to leave his wife.
When Martha Rendell joined Morris at a weatherboard house in East Perth in 1907, she also took over the care of the five Morris children. Over the next 15 months, three of the children died from “throat afflictions”. It was only when another child became ill in 1909 that police became suspicious.
The Coroner found that Rendell had killed the children by regularly painting their throats with hydrochloric acid. Soon after, a jury found her guilty of one death despite the lack of a motive. They had heard that Rendell was a “sadist and pervert” and the judge said she was a “moral deformity”. Morris, who had been jointly charged, was acquitted. Rendell became the only woman to be hanged in Fremantle Prison. She died protesting her innocence. There was controversy at the time, with many claiming she did not get a fair trial. The debate occasionally resumes.

Eric Edgar Cooke (1931-1964) Convicted Serial Murderer

Eric Edgar Cooke achieved notoriety as the last person to be executed in Western Australia. He was a random killer who ended Perth’s relaxed mode of living exemplified by unlocked doors and sleeping outdoors on a summer’s night.
At 14 Cooke left the fifth school he had attended and took on a variety of jobs. Later he joined the regular army where he was noted for his skill with a rifle. He was discharged after it was discovered that he had a string of previous convictions for house break-ins.
Meanwhile Cooke married Sally Lavin, a 19-year-old waitress, and they produced seven children. During this time, Cooke was arrested several times as a “Peeping Tom”, for stealing a car, and for other minor offences.
Early on 27 January 1963 Cooke killed three people and wounded another two. In August that year he shot dead a student on a babysitting assignment. Police still had no suspect for the murders as Perth went into a state of deep hysteria. Locksmiths and dealers in large dogs prospered.
Surveillance police arrested Cooke as he returned to reclaim a rifle he’d hidden earlier. The sigh of relief around the city was almost tangible. After his arrest, Cooke confessed to numerous crimes including eight murders, 14 attempted murders and many burglaries. It was generally agreed that Cooke had committed at least another two earlier and unsolved murders. The story which came out at his trial was one of parental abuse and brain damage.
Cooke was convicted. He went to the gallows – the last person to be hanged in WA – claiming he had committed the murders for which John Button and Darryl Beamish had been convicted. John Button’s conviction was quashed in 2002, and Darryl Beamish was exonerated in 2005.

Ivan “Russian Jack” Fredericks (c1864-1904) Miner

One of Western Australia’s most colourful pioneers, Ivan Fredericks, better known as Russian Jack, was born in the Russian port of Archangel. In 1886 he arrived in the Kimberley to make his fortune in the gold strike. According to historian Geoffrey Blainey, Russian Jack pushed a barrow with shafts 2.2m long and a wooden wheel so wide it would not sink into soft sand.
Russian Jack personified the notion of “mateship”. On one waterless stretch he overtook two old men who were too tired to carry their swags. He loaded the swags on his barrow and delivered them to the nearest waterhole. On another occasion he wheeled a sick prospector in his wheelbarrow through the Kimberley’s harsh landscape to shelter and water.
But for all his noble deeds, Russian Jack never struck his bonanza. Once he fell 20m into an open cut while walking in the dark. He was found three days later in a sorry state. His first comment to his rescuers was, “I’ve missed a shift”.
Russian Jack was about 40 when he died in Fremantle of a hard life coupled with even harder drinking. His last years were spent in a shelter for the homeless and in prison. A Catholic priest, Father John Smyth, performed the service around his unmarked grave. Almost a century later Ivan was chosen as “a symbol of nobility” by the Russian Orthodox Church and a marble cross was erected on his grave. He is also honoured by a bronze statue outside the Visitors’ Centre in Halls Creek.

Annie Jane “Nurse Sheedy” Clune (1870-1945) Midwife

Annie Clune was known for much of her life as Annie “Nurse” Sheedy. Annie came to Fremantle with her baker husband and five sons from Cessnock, New South Wales. They lived near Wray Avenue.
When her husband, James Sheedy, died at the age of 40 in 1908, Nurse Sheedy started a small maternity hospital at her home. In 1920 she moved up to Ocean View, a large, luxurious house in Solomon Street built by Elias Solomon, which still stands to this day. It had been used as a military hospital since 1917 which must have had a particular poignancy for Nurse Sheedy, as two of her sons were killed in World War I.
The hospital advertised “homely accommodation for ladies”, providing “fresh milk daily from own cows”. Some patients, particularly Italians and Yugoslavs, would trade fresh fish or vegetables in return for their accommodation.
Nurse Sheedy remarried and officially became Annie Clune, but remained known as Nurse Sheedy. One of her sons Arthur (“Barney”) Sheedy became a celebrated footballer with East Fremantle. “Barney” Sheedy married Hilda Bee, whose mother worked at the hospital as a cook. Nurse Sheedy’s grandson, Jack Sheedy, was an even more famous footballer. Jack’s estimate of his grandmother’s significance: “She must have delivered half of the people of Fremantle."Læs mere