South Australia’s pioneering first Greek to be honoured with bust unveiling at the Migration Museum

On Saturday October 29 the Tramountanas-North association in conjunction with the Greek Orthodox Community of South Australia, will hold a bicentenary celebration of the birth of George Tramountanas, the celebration also marking 180 years since his arrival in Australia.

The ceremony, to be held at the South Australian Migration Museum from 3-5pm will host the unveiling of two busts dedicated to Mr. Tramountanas and his wife Lydia.

Regarded by the Greek community of South Australia as their pioneering grandfather, George Tramountanas is believed to be the first Greek to have arrived in the then colony of South Australia shores when he disembarked at Port Adelaide in 1842.

Hailing from the island of Lemnos in the North Aegean, Tramountanas was born to a family of seafaring shipbuilders. When he arrived in South Australia at the age of 20, the colony was just six years old.

Soon changing his name to George North, some time after 1846 Mr. Tramountanas gained employment at the Peake winery in Clarendon, now known as ‘The Old Clarendon Winery’; there he tended to the vineyard, while also making wines and brandy.

In 1857 he found work on the steamship “SS Admella”. During his tenure on the ship, while on shore leave at Port Adelaide he met Lydia Vosper, herself having arrived from Devon, England two years prior aboard the “Caucasian”.

Both converted to Roman Catholicism owing to the absence of an established Greek Orthodox church in the colony.

The pair were married at the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, now known as St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Dale St. Pt. Adelaide, on September 26, 1858.

The newly-weds then moved to the west coast of South Australia, initially to Port Lincoln then to Green Patch where their two sons George Henry and Hero Clare were born in 1861 and ’62 respectively.

Finally settling in Newland Grange at Colton on the Eyre Peninsula, Mr. Tramountanas, now George North, became a naturalised British subject on April 8 1878 as witnessed by Justice of the Peace George Agars.

George and Lydia lived out their retirement at Newland Grange where George continued to grow grapes for wine until his passing on January 29 1911 aged 89 years. Lydia passed two years later at the age of 78.

They are buried in the Catholic Cemetery at Colton, behind the ‘Olive Grove’ named in his honour by the Greek Orthodox Community of South Australia.

Survived by their two sons and 22 grandchildren, to this day they are remembered fondly for the parts they played in the foundational history of the colony they lived to see become a Commonwealth State in 1901.

The two busts to be unveiled on October 29 will accompany the previous honour the pair received, when a commemorative brick was laid by 5th generation descendant Dianne Jasper at the SA Migration Museum’s “Settlement Square” in 2006.

neoskosmos.com