Athanasius Treweek

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 1939, he was seconded from the Australian Army to FRUMEL in Melbourne which was linked to the American Sixth Fleet. He duly reported at the Navy. Office, Melbourne for full-time duty on 19 June. 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 confirmed the Japanese had lost four aircraft carriers. This ended Japan's offensive capability: from then on, its strategy was defensive. It was the turning point.

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."