Athanasius Treweek (original) (raw)
Lieutenant Colonel Athanasius Pryor "Ath" Treweek (1911–1995) was an Australian academic, linguist, mathematician and code-breaker. He was the son of Walter Henry Treweek (a teacher who came from Cornwall to Australia in the 1880s) and Mary Matilda Dwyer a nurse. They married in Cooma, New South Wales, Australia on 11 February 1909. She was 37 and he was 43. He was an only child and his father died in 1920 of the Spanish influenza when Ath was 8 years old. His mother could work as a nurse only by living in at a hospital, so he was sent to a boarding school in Bowral.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| dbo:abstract | Lieutenant Colonel Athanasius Pryor "Ath" Treweek (1911–1995) was an Australian academic, linguist, mathematician and code-breaker. He was the son of Walter Henry Treweek (a teacher who came from Cornwall to Australia in the 1880s) and Mary Matilda Dwyer a nurse. They married in Cooma, New South Wales, Australia on 11 February 1909. She was 37 and he was 43. He was an only child and his father died in 1920 of the Spanish influenza when Ath was 8 years old. His mother could work as a nurse only by living in at a hospital, so he was sent to a boarding school in Bowral. After attending St Ignatius' College, Riverview, where he was dux in 1928, "Ath" Treweek (as he was generally known) won the 1932 Cooper Scholarship for first place in Latin and Greek examinations conducted by the University of Sydney. Ath took both a First in Latin and Greek, with the University Medal in Classics, and an Honours degree in mathematics. The combination led to a PhD thesis on fourth-century Greek geometry. He joined the Greek Department at University of Sydney in 1938, eventually going on to become a Professor of Greek at that very same institution. In 1937, in anticipation of impending war, he had taught himself to read Japanese. He was already a major in the Citizen Military Forces commanding a field battery in the Sydney University Regiment. Following the outbreak of World War II, in January 1940, with the encouragement of the Australian Army, he, together with some colleagues at the University of Sydney, began to study Japanese codes. The others were the mathematicians Thomas Gerald Room and Richard Lyons and the classicist Arthur Dale Trendall. In May 1941 Room and Treweek attended a meeting at the Victoria Barracks in Melbourne with the Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Australian Navy, several Australian Army intelligence officers and Eric Nave, an expert Japanese cryptographer with the Royal Australian Navy. As a result, it was agreed that Room's group, with the agreement of the University of Sydney, would move in August 1941 to work under Nave at the Special Intelligence Bureau in Melbourne. After the outbreak of war with Japan they were working for FRUMEL (Fleet Radio Unit Melbourne), a joint American-Australian intelligence unit, but when Lieutenant Rudolph Fabian took over command of FRUMEL and particularly when, in October 1942, FRUMEL was placed under direct control of the US Navy, civilians such as the member of Room's group were found surplus to requirements and returned to their academic posts. He was part of a team instrumental in breaking Japanese naval codes. A Japanese success there would have been a major blow for the Allies. Decoded signals following the Battle of Midway confirmed that the Japanese had lost four aircraft carriers, so ending Japan's offensive capability. From then Japan's strategy was defensive; the battle was the turning point of the Pacific War. The notebooks of his research for his PhD are online.Emeritus Professor Bill Ritchie wrote "Apart from his particular interest in Greek mathematics, Ath's interests were especially in the language, of which he had a particularly fine knowledge. He was a very effective teacher at all levels, and especially for those whose bent was towards philological studies. He will be remembered with respect and affection by a generation of classicists." (en) |
| dbo:thumbnail | wiki-commons:Special:FilePath/Major_Athanasius_Pryor_Treweek_in_1942.jpg?width=300 |
| dbo:wikiPageExternalLink | http://www.ozatwar.com/sigint/frumel.htm http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/01/01/1136050341641.html http://www.smh.com.au/news/obituaries/all-the-world-a-stage-for-teacher-and-student/2006/01/01/1136050341641.html |
| dbo:wikiPageID | 5514619 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageLength | 7821 (xsd:nonNegativeInteger) |
| dbo:wikiPageRevisionID | 1114298965 (xsd:integer) |
| dbo:wikiPageWikiLink | dbr:Battle_of_Midway dbr:University_of_Sydney dbr:Dux dbc:1995_deaths dbr:Greek_language dbr:Thomas_Gerald_Room dbr:Professor dbc:1912_births dbc:20th-century_linguists dbc:University_of_Sydney_faculty dbc:Australian_Army_officers dbc:Linguists_from_Australia dbr:Ancient_Greek_language dbr:Eric_Nave dbc:20th-century_Australian__mathematicians dbr:Japanese_language dbc:Australian_Army_personnel_of_World_War_II dbc:Australian_Roman_Catholics dbr:Latin dbr:Code_(cryptography) dbr:Arthur_Dale_Trendall dbc:Australian_cryptographers dbr:World_War_II dbr:St_Ignatius'_College,_Riverview dbr:File:Lt_Colonel_Athanasius_Pryor_Treweek_1946.jpg dbr:File:Major_Athanasius_Pryor_Treweek_in_1942.jpg dbr:Hazel_Elizabeth_Logue |
| dbp:wikiPageUsesTemplate | dbt:Authority_control dbt:Use_dmy_dates |
| dcterms:subject | dbc:1995_deaths dbc:1912_births dbc:20th-century_linguists dbc:University_of_Sydney_faculty dbc:Australian_Army_officers dbc:Linguists_from_Australia dbc:20th-century_Australian__mathematicians dbc:Australian_Army_personnel_of_World_War_II dbc:Australian_Roman_Catholics dbc:Australian_cryptographers |
| gold:hypernym | dbr:Academic |
| rdf:type | owl:Thing dbo:Person yago:WikicatAustralianCryptographers yago:WikicatAustralianLinguists yago:WikicatPeopleFromNewSouthWales yago:CausalAgent100007347 yago:Cryptanalyst109981540 yago:Decoder109995398 yago:Intellectual109621545 yago:Linguist110264437 yago:LivingThing100004258 yago:Object100002684 yago:Organism100004475 yago:Person100007846 yago:PhysicalEntity100001930 yago:YagoLegalActor yago:YagoLegalActorGeo yago:Scientist110560637 yago:Whole100003553 |
| rdfs:comment | Lieutenant Colonel Athanasius Pryor "Ath" Treweek (1911–1995) was an Australian academic, linguist, mathematician and code-breaker. He was the son of Walter Henry Treweek (a teacher who came from Cornwall to Australia in the 1880s) and Mary Matilda Dwyer a nurse. They married in Cooma, New South Wales, Australia on 11 February 1909. She was 37 and he was 43. He was an only child and his father died in 1920 of the Spanish influenza when Ath was 8 years old. His mother could work as a nurse only by living in at a hospital, so he was sent to a boarding school in Bowral. (en) |
| rdfs:label | Athanasius Treweek (en) |
| owl:sameAs | freebase:Athanasius Treweek yago-res:Athanasius Treweek wikidata:Athanasius Treweek https://global.dbpedia.org/id/4SzYQ |
| prov:wasDerivedFrom | wikipedia-en:Athanasius_Treweek?oldid=1114298965&ns=0 |
| foaf:depiction | wiki-commons:Special:FilePath/Lt_Colonel_Athanasius_Pryor_Treweek_1946.jpg wiki-commons:Special:FilePath/Major_Athanasius_Pryor_Treweek_in_1942.jpg |
| foaf:isPrimaryTopicOf | wikipedia-en:Athanasius_Treweek |
| is dbo:spouse of | dbr:Hazel_Treweek |
| is dbo:wikiPageDisambiguates of | dbr:Treweek |
| is dbo:wikiPageWikiLink of | dbr:List_of_alumni_of_Jesuit_educational_institutions dbr:Enoch_Powell dbr:Thomas_Gerald_Room dbr:Japanese_army_and_diplomatic_codes dbr:Eric_Nave dbr:List_of_Riverview_Old_Ignatians dbr:Hazel_Treweek dbr:Treweek dbr:Fleet_Radio_Unit,_Melbourne |
| is dbp:spouse of | dbr:Hazel_Treweek |
| is foaf:primaryTopic of | wikipedia-en:Athanasius_Treweek |
