Rosemary Gilliat

Rosemary Gilliat ( – ) was an English photojournalist who traveled across Canada, documenting people and events for publications such as Weekend magazine and the National Film Board of Canada.

Biography Early life and photographic training Rosemary Gilliat was raised by her father on his tea plantation in Ceylon. She was educated in Geneva, Switzerland under the supervision of her grandmother and later, at age 16, in Germany. Although she had an interest in photography since receiving her first camera, a Brownie, at age 8, it was while in Germany, in 1936–1937, that she secured her first work as a photographer, selling her images for book illustrations.

Photographic career in Canada Gilliat worked primarily as a freelance photographer, between the years 1953 and 1964. Her first assignment that required her to leave Ottawa was for the Husdon's Bay Company's magazine The Beaver, for which she travelled to Dawson City, Yukon in 1953. During her career she also put photo stories together for Weekend magazine, Star Weekly (a photo insert for the Toronto Star), Canadian Geographic and Maclean's, and also completed assignments for several government departments, including the Department of Northern Affairs and the National Film Board of Canada's Still Photography Division. In 1963, she married Mike Eaton, a hydrographer, and they moved to Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia in 1965.

Though Gilliat is largely known for her photojournalism, she has produced notable other works created through her personal life or social network. In Photography in Canada, 1839 - 1989: An Illustrated History, historians Sarah Bassnett and Sarah Parsons identify a number of 'remarkable' photographs taking during a cross-country camping trip in 1954. Bassnett and Parsons note that these works came from a desire to protect family and community histories, rather than a to obtain success as a career artist.

Gilliat's photographic career was curtailed by ill-health in 1963, when she developed a problem with her inner-ear.

She died in 2004, in Cole Harbour. Her archive of professional and personal work was acquired by Library and Archives Canada in 2008.