By 1917 it was apparent that repatriation services for returning service men and women were inadequate. Soldiers were arriving back in the country in large numbers, most of them damaged by illness or injury. Many of them would not be able to return to their pre-war occupations. They needed medical assessment, financial assistance, vocational training and, eventually, employment.
The Repatriation Department chose a site in Jolimont for its Melbourne office. It was a strip of land, 300 feet long (91.44 metres) on the north side of Wellington Parade South, opposite the East Melbourne Cricket Ground and Gustave Techow’s National Gymnasium. The Melbourne City Council agreed to the government leasing the land as long as no damage was done to the lines of existing elm and pepper-corn trees, and granted a maximum tenancy of seven years.
The buildings, including a two-storey section, would be built of hardwood and fibro-cement and take up 180 feet of the land, ‘and the area will be large enough to leave room for garden-seating accommodation for those who have to wait while their business is being transacted.’ Work was completed by March 1918.
Over the next few years thousands of people were channelled through this complex seeking help in reclaiming their lives. Vocational training was a big part of this. The Australian War Museum holds a series of photos of classes in progress. A huge variety of trades was taught but the only class in which women were engaged was typing.
As the need for repatriation services dwindled the buildings were repurposed and for a short time the Works and Railways Department used them is as its departmental drafting office. By this time the cricket ground and gymnasium had gone and had been replaced by the Jolimont shunting yards. Then in 1927 the Commonwealth Government decided that all its departmental services should be transferred to our new capital city. It deemed the Jolimont buildings perfect for providing instant accommodation. And so the complex was dismantled and repatriated to Canberra to be re-erected in the civic centre in the northern section of the city.
The locals were horrified by members of their government ‘bringing this atrocity to the city, they have placed it upon a conspicuous site adjoining the beautiful shopping blocks at Civil Centre, with their artistic Spanish Mission facades, and the contrast is, to say the least of it, shocking.’
The buildings were damaged by fire in 1969 but were not demolished until 1977 when they were replaced by a new building. To this day the new building is known as the Jolimont Centre. Among other things it houses the interstate coach terminus and if you travel to Canberra by Greyhound bus this is where you will be deposited.
This article first appeared in Inner City News, March 2025
