Dear Sir,

I am in the throes of completing a biography of Bermuda’s great architect, Wilfred “Wil” Onions (1908-1959).

As many Bermudians will know, Onions left an indelible mark on his native land by celebrating the island’s native genius for vernacular architecture — the iconic “Bermuda cottage” — while at the same time adapting the style to meet the demands of an increasingly modern and affluent society. The aesthetic legacy of his designs is to this day evident from one end of the island to the other.

I am now at the stage of finding illustrations for the book. While there is an ample record of the homes and buildings — most notably the Hamilton City Hall — that he and his architectural partners designed, as has been so wonderfully demonstrated by the Bermuda National Trust, it is proving much harder to locate images of the man himself.

Onions led what might be described as a low-key life, revelling in his professional work but at the same time living a relatively quiet life in his family home, Aberfeldy, in Somerset . There are consequently, to my knowledge, few images of Onions in relaxed, perhaps social, settings. It must be sadly noted that Onions died by his own hand in 1959, the outcome of a number of personal and professional tribulations. Giving him pictorial presence will in some way help to restore his humanity in the book.

With this in mind, I would very much appreciate the assistance of your readers in locating any photographic images of Onions the man for use in the book. They need not be formal images — family photo-album images often do more to bring a person alive than set-piece portraits. Any image submitted and used will be given full credit.

I can be reached at duncanmcdowall@hotmail.com.

DUNCAN McDOWALL

University Historian Emeritus

Queen's University

Kingston, Ontario