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4 Motor Vehicle Trades Training Centre
Long before it became home to Graylands Teachers College and eventually the Mount Claremont housing estate, the land tucked behind Claremont was once part of Australia’s wartime machinery. During World War II, the site played a vital support role as a military vehicle training depot, a place where army personnel learned how to repair and maintain the vehicles that kept the war effort moving.
Army Training Centre
The facility was known as the 4 Motor Vehicle Trades Training Centre and it was run by the Australian Army, as part of the 4th Military District. Established sometime in 1942, official photos from May 1943 show soldiers attending practical repair classes on trucks and engines. Whilst it wasn’t a combat base, it was a technical training ground, where already-trained soldiers were given specialist instruction in mechanical trades. Officers, mechanics and instructors worked side by side, learning everything from gearbox assembly to diagnosing faults on out-of-service army vehicles.
The depot was built on open land on Lantana Avenue in Graylands, an area that would later become the Mount Claremont housing estate. It occupied part of 42 hectares of University Endowment Land that had been taken over by the Australian Army under the National Security Regulations. The 27 structures that were constructed for the training centre were simple and temporary, described as “substandard corrugated iron and asbestos structures”, typical of wartime installations. These buildings were designed for function, not longevity.
It served a crucial role behind the scenes. It trained the mechanics and tradespeople who kept vehicles running, in what was often harsh conditions, across Australia and the Pacific. The people who passed through Graylands might not have fought on the front lines but their work helped keep the wheels of the military turning.
Graylands Migrant Centre
The Army Training Centre left the site in 1944 and the camp was taken over by the Western Command Leave and Transit Depot until May 1946. When it became surplus to defence needs, the site was handed over to the Department of Immigration in 1947 to house European immigrants. It was later taken over by Commonwealth Hostels, which gave accommodation priority first to the English, then to the Dutch and finally to the Germans.
A modern immigration facility, the Holden Holding Centre, was constructed on the site of the Northam Army Camp and officially opened on 17 August 1949. Designed to handle the entirety of Western Australia’s migrant intake, it greatly reduced the need for the Graylands Migrant Centre. However, the Graylands site was not closed and placed on a caretaker basis until February 1952.
The centre reopened in April to provide short-term housing for some 400 Italian migrants, awaiting job placements under the Australian–Italian Migration Scheme.
The Department of the Interior moved to auction off the Graylands site on 28 August 1954, excluding the Graylands Hostel and Nissen huts, which remained under the control of Commonwealth Hostels Ltd.
Graylands Teachers College
As the auction approached, the State Government stepped in to acquire the property, repurposing it to establish a Graylands Teachers College. At a cost of £17,000, the site and its remaining army huts were converted into classrooms, staff rooms and lecture spaces, to accommodate between 200 and 250 students. It was located between the Graylands Migrant Hostel and the primary school.
The College was intended only as a temporary measure to relieve overcrowding at the nearby Claremont Teachers College until a more permanent campus could be secured. Yet the makeshift army buildings, some designed to last barely five years, remained in use for nearly a quarter of a century.
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Cover of Cam Rielly's 1979 book
In 1978, recommendations were made to close the College by the end of 1979, with most students transferred to the newer Churchlands and Mount Lawley Teachers Colleges and the remainder absorbed by Claremont.
Today, there’s no sign of the army’s presence. The land has been redeveloped and the buildings are long gone but for a time, Graylands was a hive of military activity. Part technical college, part barracks, part training camp. Its legacy lives on, not only in the history of the Graylands Teachers College but also in the broader story of how Western Australia mobilised its people and resources during a global conflict.
