Our 2024 proposed year’s programme can be seen here.
Meetings will be hybrid meetings: live at Kingsbridge Retirement Community and on Zoom. At present there are no Covid restrictions at Kingsbridge. The spaciousness of this venue also allows us to offer light refreshments and an opportunity for socialization preceding each lecture: 6:30 for 7:00 p.m.
Members receive the Zoom link on the Friday before the Wednesday meeting. Non-members: for the Zoom link, please email before 6 p.m. on the day of the meeting.
The Kingsbridge Retirement Community at 950 Centennial Drive is the tall building just south of Princess Street. Enter on the east side (the other end from Centennial Drive). Staff will be at the door to give you directions. Park in any unmarked parking space; there is also parking around Shoppers Drug Mart. Express buses #501 and 502 serve Upper Princess Street with a stop very near Kingsbridge. Bus #4 offers slower service along Princess Street from downtown. Use the Centennial Drive bus stop.
Wednesday, September 18th: Alan McLeod’s talk has had to be postponed until 2025. Instead, Peter Gower will present The Kingston Historical Society’s first 131 years … and the future? Non members please email kingstonhs@gmail.com for the Zoom link before 6 pm on the 18th. Members will be emailed the link.
(more detailed descriptions are available here)
Wednesday, October 16th: William Galbraith will talk on John Buchan: Model Governor General Non members please email kingstonhs@gmail.com for the Zoom link before 6 pm on the 16th. Members will be emailed the link.
Wednesday, November 20th: Well-known local architectural historian and archaeologist John Grenville will discuss the interesting career of architect Ernest R. Beckwith (1879-1963), who worked in Kingston as City Engineer and operated as an architect in the years before World War I, leaving a built legacy in both residential and commercial Kingston still evident today. Non members please email kingstonhs@gmail.com for the Zoom link before 6 pm on the 20th. Members will be emailed the link.
Meetings held in 2020 to 2023 are indexed by topic and by speaker here. You can download a Word document with live links to YouTube.
January: Professor Gordon Dueck : “Barbers in Blackface? African-Canadian Musicians in Fin-de-Siecle Kingston.”You can watch the presentation here The original recordings are lost but the sheet music survives and one can find renditions of the songs from “In Dahomey” on YouTube at
https://youtu.be/Mki_FLAMnXc?si=BKCBI0DNV71Uu7Q5
https://youtu.be/Gnf-tja58-g?si=AGNQQEn-d1cd7OaJ
https://youtu.be/KnM__IAMnl4?si=OXRc7Mj3PPa9RBTk
Annual General Meeting. The Agenda is here . The YouTube video is here. The Financial Statement for 2023 is here
March: Eric Gagnon: “Two Miles, Two Tracks, Two Railways, To Obscurity.” You can watch the presentation here
April: Margaret Ross ‘Your Town is Rotten’: Prostitution, Profit and the Governing of Vice in Kingston, Ontario, 1860-1920s, You can watch the presentation here..
May: Ian Macpherson McCulloch : John Bradstreet’s Raid 1758. You can watch the presentation here
June 6th: Dr. Stephen Smith Macdonald’s Four Lives at Bellevue House. You can watch the commemoration here
You might want to catch up on your reading about Kingston. We have produced a Reading List – click here to see it! Contact us here with suggestions for additions to the list. We also recommend you viewing a video describing the 22 National Historic Sites of Kingston. You can find it here . If you have comments on it, please contact Greg Anderson at gpanderson191@gmail.
Thursday July 18th, Marc Seguin will talk on For Want of a Lighthouse: Guiding Ships through the Graveyard of Lake Ontario, 1828 – 1914 at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 352 Market Street, Cape Vincent, NY at 6.30 pm.
Saturday July 20th: Kingston Open Doors, 10 am to 4 pm, with 20 participating venues.
Sunday July 21st at 1:30 pm, Eric Gagnon will be doing a presentation “On the Waterfront“. He will be talking about trains, ships and industries along Kingston’s waterfront and the connection to Wolfe Island over the years. The presentation will start in the United Church Hall, on Wolfe Island.
Monday June 24, 2.30 to 6.30 pm visit the Portsmouth Tavern and get your signed copies of two books by Dave More. Loyal Watermen is the history of French Canadian Inland Mariners from 1775 to 1815. They made critically important contributions to preserving Canada from American domination. This is never-before-revealed history of our country. Dark Watershed is a Tom Clancy-ish thriller set in the near future (2029) when a new U.S. President takes steps to acquire Canadian fresh water. A real page-turner and a quick read!!
Saturday August 24th: Kingston Open Doors, 10 am to 4 pm, with 20 participating venues.
Saturday September 28th: Kingston Open Doors, 10 am to 4 pm, with 20 participating venues.