Lugrin, George

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: C. M. Wallace, “LUGRIN, GEORGE KILMAN,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lugrin_george_kilman_6E.html
  • DCB profile:
    • Printer, office holder, and newspaperman; b. c. 1792 in Saint John, N.B., son of loyalist Peter Lugrin; m. there 5 Feb. 1815 Deborah Ann Smiler; d. 12 May 1835 in Fredericton.
    • By 1807 George Kilman Lugrin was a newsboy and apprentice printer in the Saint John office, who the following year took over both the post of king’s printer and the publication of the Royal Gazette, and New-Brunswick Advertiser. By 1813 he was a freeman of the city and a full-fledged printer with Mott. The death of his employer in January 1814 was the occasion for several changes.
    • Mott’s wife, Ann, was denied permission to serve as king’s printer because of her sex, and that spring Lugrin was appointed to the post, apparently on condition that the operation be moved to Fredericton, which had no newspaper at the time. In April he announced that he would begin publishing there as soon as his press and types had arrived from England and that, in the mean time, with the permission of the president of the Council, he was appropriating a page of William Durant’s City Gazette for the New-Brunswick Royal Gazette. It was not until 10 March 1815 that his journal, a combination of official government notices and general news, appeared in Fredericton.
    • Having married a month earlier, Lugrin settled in the capital and established a newspaper tradition that was to last into the 20th century.” and ” Lugrin was part of what has been called a “new generation in the printing fraternity,” one separated from the issues that surrounded the founding of New Brunswick and from the politics of the loyalists. Their interests were centred on the province of the day.
    • The Lugrin family remained in newspapers into the following century. Charles S. Lugrin, his son, was publisher and editor of the Fredericton Express in 1863 and the Colonial Farmer from 1863 to 1877. Charles’s son Charles Henry Lugrin worked for several newspapers, founded the Fredericton Herald in 1882, and was editor of the Victoria, B.C., Colonist from 1897 to 1902.
  • Son of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=4844
  • Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/61326085/george-kilman-lugrin