Collections

Visit the new Kingston Civic Collection Website and explore the collection today!

Objects, documents and works of art are the material expression of a community’s culture and history, and act as tangible witnesses to past achievements, events, ideas and ways of living. The City holds in public trust for the people of Kingston a fascinating selection of historical artefacts, works of art and public monuments located at various municipal sites including City Hall, the MacLachlan Woodworking Museum, the PumpHouse, and several City-owned parks.

Known collectively as the civic collection, holdings include such treasures as the Engine 1095 in Confederation Park, over 60 portraits of Kingston mayors and officials at City Hall, the Victorian-era Osborne-Killey and Ingliss steam-powered water-pumping engines at the PumpHouse, the sculpture Time by artist Kosso Eloul in Breakwater Park and Canada’s most extensive collection of traditional woodworking hand tools located at the MacLachlan Woodworking Museum.