The Merimna of Pontian Ladies of Oceania – along with the Central Pontian Association of Melbourne and Victoria ‘Pontiaki Estia’ – is working closely with the City of Ballarat to have a memorial erected by 2017 in honour of George Devine Treloar, who played an active role in resettling Greek refugees from Asia Minor following 1922.
Treloar, a Ballarat local born in 1884, volunteered for military service at the outbreak of World War I, while he was living in England, where he served in France before joining the British Mission to the White Russian armies in Constantinople.
He went on to command a British camp of Russian refugees – after serving with the Tsarist army – in Tousla on the Sea of Marmara, before becoming a representative to the League of Nations High Commissariat for Refugees in northern Greece.
Between 1922-26 he was involved with resettling Greek refugees from Asia Minor, first in Komotini and then in Thessaloniki, handling over 108,000 people.
Treloar received many accolades for his efforts with the Greeks, including an appointment to the Order of the Saviour (one of Greece’s highest honours) and having a village near Komotini (‘Thrilorion’) named after him.
He died in Dalkeith, west of Perth, in 1980.