John Linton Treloar, OBE, was an Australian archivist and the second director of the Australian War Memorial. During World War I he served in several staff roles and later headed the First Australian Imperial Force’s record-keeping unit. He left the Memorial at the outbreak of World War II to lead the Australian Government’s Department of Information. He returned to the Memorial in 1946, and continued as its director until his death in 1952.
About John Treloar (museum administrator) in brief
John Linton Treloar, OBE, was an Australian archivist and the second director of the Australian War Memorial. During World War I he served in several staff roles and later headed the First Australian Imperial Force’s record-keeping unit. He was appointed the director of what eventually became the AWM in 1920, and was a key figure in establishing the Memorial and raising funds for its permanent building in Canberra. He left the Memorial at the outbreak of World War II to lead the Australian Government’s Department of Information, but was effectively sidelined for much of 1940. In early 1941 he was appointed to command the Australian military’s Military History and Information Section. He returned to the Memorial in 1946, and continued as its director until his death. He died in January 1952, and the street in front of the Memorial was named in his honour. His principal achievements are seen as gathering and classifying Australia’s records of the world wars and successfully establishing the AWm. He is regarded as an important figure in Australian military history and is a member of the Order of Australia. His son, William, also enlisted in the AIF during the First World War and died in the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915. His brother William was also a soldier and served in the Australian Flying Corps during the Second World War. His wife, Clarissa Aldridge, is a former member of Australia’s House of Representatives and served as a Member of the House of Assembly. She died in December 2011. Trelar is survived by his wife Clarissa and their two children, William and William Jr, who were born in 1894 and 1894 respectively.
He also had a son, David, who was born in 1900 and served with the Royal Australian Air Force during World War One. He worked as a clerk in the Department of Defence before joining the Australian Army in 1914. He became a trained Sunday school teacher and was an avid footballer and cricket player. He believed that the military offered a means to follow his ambition for a career in a field other than small business. His father was a sales representative for Carlton & United Breweries and his mother was a strict Methodist. He took his father’s advice to wait until he was 21 before playing senior games, however, and instead took a job with theDepartment of Defence after he left school in 1911. His duties were mainly clerical, and included typing reports, orders and dispatches from senior officers. In 1916 he was assigned to No. 1 Flying Corps with the rank of lieutenant and was one of the few members of the Mesopotamian Half Flight to survive captivity after being captured by Turkish forces. During his convalescence, he became engaged and the couple married in February 1916. In December 1915 he was posted to Anzac Cove with the 1st Division’s Headquarters during the morning of 25 April 1915, and subsequently participated in theGallipoli campaign. He arrived in Melbourne on 4 December 1915. In February 1916 he returned to Australia and became engaged to Clarissa Aldridge.
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