Fremantle Stuff > people > George Andrew Seubert

George Seubert

George Andrew Seubert (originally Schubert, c.1837-1885) was a German-born ship’s captain and pioneer pearler who later owned the Albert (better known as Seubert's) Hotel. He married Charlotte Catherine Francisco in 1869. Reece 2012: 50.

Issue: Lucy Agnes Ross; Arnot David Seubert; Florence Wehrstedt; Frank Albert Seubert, George Francisco Seubert (1870-1949). Various genealogy websites.

During his stay in Fremantle de Rougemont lodged at the boarding house kept by G. A. Seubert, a three-storey building that stood on the present site of the Union Bank [on the northwest corner of Cliff and High Sts]. It was the best establishment of its kind at the time and was the favourite resort of the North-West pearlers as well as of shipmasters, who in those days spent most of their time on shore while their ships were lying out in the roadstead, the discharging and loading being done by lightering. The pearlers flocked from the North-West in large numbers during the off season and before steam communication with the Eastern States they went no further than Fremantle. Being well equipped with money, they made things hum in the town during their stay. Much has been heard of the ”Roaring Nineties” of the golden era, but many old residents retain pleasant memories of the ”Roaring Seventies” of the pearling era. Hitchcock (1929): 58.

On December of that year Captain Owston' s schooner, New Perseverance, was wrecked in Cossack Creek. She was driven so far on the land by a tidal wave that it was impossible to refloat her, and it was said that her stranded hull was subsequently used by G. S. Seubert as a taproom when that enterprising individual secured a licence for the sale of liquor in Cossack. Hitchcock: 49. [Is G.S. Seubert Hitchcock's 'typo' {he wrote in longhand} for G.A. Seubert? I think so.]

The boarding house run by Charlotte and George Seubert on the corner of Cliff and High Streets had been the residence, first of Daniel Scott, then Commissary-General Charles Eichbaum. It was demolished in 1888 to make room for the Union Bank building, which has been on that site since 1889.

References and Links

Hitchcock, J.K. 1929, The History of Fremantle, The Front Gate of Australia, 1829-1929, Fremantle City Council.

Reece, Bob 2012, 'Fremantle's first historian: Joseph Keane Hitchcock', Fremantle Studies, 7: 33-50.

Obituary, The West Australian, 14 July 1885.


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