George Lilley (1936-2021)

Dr George Peter Lilley was born in 1936, shortly after his parents had fled from Berlin, where his father had been a judge. He later lived with his mother in Kent. During 1957-60 he read English at Pembroke College Oxford and spent a year as a Trainee Librarian in the Bodleian Library before undertaking the Postgraduate Diploma in Librarianship at University College London. His first professional post was at Battersea Technical College Librarian before appointment as Assistant Librarian in the University of Reading where he met his wife Maureen who was also on the staff. In the early 1970s he moved to Wye College which was then part of the University of London. In the late 1970s he became Librarian of what was then St David’s University College Lampeter, a post he held until his retirement when he was given the title of Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of English. His final years were marred by ill health and he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. He died in a nursing home in Llandysul on 10 January 2021. He published bibliographies of John Middleton Murry (1974) and Anthony Powell (1993). In 2002 he gained a PhD from Lampeter for a thesis on Powell’s bibliography and publishing history. Classical music was very important to him, as also to his wife Maureen, and he was an accomplished violinist.