- He was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1974 Queen's Honours List before being awarded Knight of the Order of New Zealand in the 1999 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to Dance.
- He received several honours and awards in his lifetime, including a Fulbright Fellowship and the Turnovsky Award.
- Trimmer also appeared in dramatic roles in television and on stage - he took the title role in the 1986 television series The Fireraiser and in 2004 toured New Zealand with Helen Moulder in her play Meeting Karpovsky. A year later, he appeared with Dame Kate Harcourt in Blood, Guts and Khaki, a tribute to New Zealand's heroes of war. He said in an interview in 2006 that acting was like an extension of his character work in ballet.
- Returning to the New Zealand Ballet in 1962, he began taking lead roles in what he later recalled as the company's golden years when it had a big following and was accompanied by an orchestra in the big towns rather than recorded music. All that ended in 1968 when a fire in the Ballet's storehouse destroyed 15 years of props and costumes - all uninsured.
- In his later years, he took up pottery and occasionally exhibited his work.
- He trained at the Royal Ballet School in London for a year and then danced with the Sadler's Wells Theatre.
- Trimmer began dancing with the newly formed New Zealand Ballet when he was 18, touring the country for six months in 1958 before going overseas.
- Among the many roles he danced were Petrouchka and the role of Albrecht in Giselle.
- Sir Jon Trimmer, known as Jonty, was a mainstay of New Zealand ballet for more than 40 years and danced overseas with such greats as Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev.
- Trimmer was educated at Wellington Technical College Art School.
- Trimmer met his wife Jacqui Oswald - also a dancer - when they both joined the New Zealand Ballet Company as dancers on the same day in 1958,.
- After dancing most of the great roles, and despite remaining very fit, Trimmer gave up performing the dashing princes and settled into a character repertoire of old men, old ladies and witches.
- In 1991, he was presented with a Scroll of Honour from the Variety Artists Club of New Zealand for services to entertainment and dance.
- At the 1971 Feltex Television Awards in February 1972, Trimmer won the performers' award for his dancing in the ballet Façade that was staged for television and broadcast by the NZBC in 1971.
- Trimmer was patron of the Centastage theatrical company as well as Te Raukura ki Kapiti.
- His contribution to New Zealand dance was also marked by a tribute afternoon tea hosted by the Governor General at Government House. Shortly after that, he was named Wellingtonian of the Year.
- After dancing with the Australian and Royal Danish Ballets, Timmer and his wife came home for a visit and found the New Zealand Ballet in one of its periodic crises. They cancelled their contracts with the Washington Ballet and stayed to help. Restricted by the Arts Council to eight dancers, the company went on tour for six months. It performed in small centres around the country, sometimes in school halls and gymnasia, to appreciative audiences. The company survived and began to thrive again.
- In later years he danced character parts such as Captain Hook in Peter Pan.
- In 2008, to celebrate his 50th year dancing with the Royal New Ballet and at the age of 69, Trimmer took the role of The Don in the world premiere of Don Quixote and was on stage for most of the performance.
- In a statement, the Royal New Zealand Ballet described Trimmer as a "beloved kaumatua".
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