2002

Alan Treloar, T. D., M. A. (Oxon & Melb.), D. Litt. (U.N.E.)

Dr Alan Treloar is one of Australia's greatest living philologists and classical scholars. He has established an enviable universal reputation as an academic who combines the qualities of meticulous and exhaustive research with a profound understanding of the formal principles of language. He is in international demand for expert advice on a vast number of ancient languages - Hittite, Sanskrit, Akkadian, Sumerian, Ugaritic, Eblaite and many others - and his interests extend to modern languages as well. He is too modest to put an exact figure on the languages with which he is familiar, but he admits to a 'nodding acquaintance' with approximately eighty. He has published and lectured in many countries and is regarded with esteem and respect by scholars world-wide.

Alan Treloar attended Carey from February, 1929 until December, 1936. He was Dux of School in both 1935 and 1936. He then studied classics at the University of Melbourne and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to New College, Oxford, in 1940. The outbreak of World War II prevented his taking up the scholarship immediately. He saw distinguished service in the Middle East and was awarded the Territorial Distinction in 1957, subsequently confirmed by two clasps, in 1963 and 1969.

Alan had a distinguished career at Oxford and returned to Australia to lecture in classics in the University of Melbourne, in which position he remained from 1945 until 1948. Then followed Assistant Lecturer in Ancient History in the University of Nottingham (1949-50), Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Humanity, University of Glasgow (1950-59), Warden of Hytten Hall and Reader in Classics, University of Tasmania (1959-60), Master of Wright College (1960-66), Reader in Comparative Philology, University of New England (1966-84). Though officially 'retired', Alan still takes students and advises on a host of academic matters as well as maintaining his reading and research. The catholicity of his cultural tastes can be gauged from his major publications: Horace the minstrel (1969), The importance of music (1967), An Anzac diary (1993), Electronic antiquity (1993) and Lyra (1994). He married Bronnie (dec. 1991), herself a distinguished academic, in 1945, and they had three daughters, Ann, Megan (dec.) and Jean.

Alan Treloar has made an outstanding contribution to the academic and military life of our country.