"Thank you so very much for the copies of your 'Waterfront' books which I received this week. I have enjoyed viewing the pictures and am looking forward to reading your research. George passed away 18 years ago this month. If he were alive, I know he would have enjoyed talking with you, especially about his beloved Kingston. He would be so pleased to know that his pictures have been helpful in the 'telling' of Kingston. I am so glad to have your books and thank you again.
Upon publication, I provided a copy of each book to the Archives, as well as a copy to their Lilley family contact. The Archives staff told me that they do not put researchers in direct contact with copyright holders, though they do convey permission to researchers to use material, in this case from the Lilley family to use the photographs. It seemed to be the right thing to do to provide them with a copy, to show how George Lilley's photos live on!
From the 1940’s to the 1970’s, photographer George Lilley recorded a layer of Kingston’s history that no-one else did. A photographer who freelanced for the Kingston Whig-Standard, Lilley covered accidents, fires, weather events and train wrecks. He was also called out to document the results of car collisions for insurance cases, as well as crime scenes and the trials of local criminals and prisoners. He employed a sense of drama and adventure in his photography – life’s triumphs and tragedies. Lilley donated over 20,000 of his negatives to the Queen’s University Archives, where they are stored in a climate-controlled vault. He was a ‘road man’. When a deer got trapped in a Princess Street store window, he was there. When the Wolfe Island ferry caught fire, he was there. It was all part of his record of the city at the time. If George Lilley had not been such a prolific photographer, there would be a lot less Kingston history to see and to share.
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