He served as an infantry training officer in Fredericton and then proceeded overseas during World War II as historian (rising to Deputy-Director) in the Historical Section at Canadian Army Headquarters in London, England;[3] he was also responsible for administering the War Artist Program, whose staff included Bruno Bobak, Molly Lamb Bobak, Alex Colville, Charles Comfort, Lawren P. Harris and Will Ogilvie.

In 1949, Stanley began teaching at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in Kingston, Ontario, where he remained for twenty years.

At RMC, he became head of the History Department, served as the first Dean of Arts for seven years (1962–1969), and began building a faculty in the humanities and social sciences.

In 1969, Stanley returned to Mount Allison University to become founding director of the new Canadian Studies program, the first of its kind in Canada.

While Lieutenant-Governor, Stanley continued to act as General Editor of The Collected Writings of Louis Riel in five volumes, which appeared in 1985 after seven years of work by five Canadian scholars; this project was published ahead of schedule and under budget.

Well into his nineties, Stanley continued to research, write, read manuscripts, review books, give interviews and talks, encourage young scholars, and maintain an active interest in the militia, cadets, St. John Ambulance, and SEVEC.

In a highly organized and rigidly structured environment, he stood out to us as the perfect role model - a gentleman, a scholar, a friend and later a confidant.

"[8] Desmond Morton, one of Stanley's students at RMC in the 1950s, a Canadian military historian and author, and formerly the founding director of Montreal's McGill Institute for the Study of Canada observed: "George's books and their non-conventional wisdom are a great contribution to this country.

Plusieurs générations d'historiens canadiens ont été, et sont toujours, influencées par son travail.

George and Ruth Stanley, with their strong sense of tradition and their comfortable manner with people from all walks of life, brought "a new level of decorum"[13] to this viceregal role.

In 1946, George Stanley married Ruth L. Hill (1922–2017),[14] ONB, BA, BCL, LLD, DCLJ, MMLJ, FRSA, a Montreal lawyer (she was gold medalist in law at McGill University).

He was a Life Member of the Royal Canadian Legion, the New Brunswick Teachers' Association, the York-Sunbury Historical Society, the Kingston Historical Society, the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada, the Military Institute of Fredericton, the Fredericton Garrison Club, and the Union Club of Saint John.

Historical plaques honouring Stanley have been erected in the Public Library, Stoney Creek, Ontario (includes a bronze bust by Elizabeth Bradford Holbrook),[20] in front of the Public Library, Sackville, New Brunswick,[21] at his boyhood home in Calgary, Alberta,[22] and on the Parade Square, Royal Military College, Kingston, Ontario.

Scobbie, 1st Battalion, The King's Own Scottish Borderers, composed a march for bagpipes to mark the occasion of Col. Stanley's official visit to Edinburgh Castle in 1986.

[29] As a Canada 150 project, the town of Sackville, New Brunswick, erected in 2018 a life-size bronze sculpture of Stanley designed by Christian Toth.

And as the two men walked across the parade grounds, Stanley gestured toward the roof of the Mackenzie Building[32] and the college flag flapping atop its tower.

Stanley wrote the pivotal flag memorandum in his study at Cluny House, Pittsburgh Township, just east of Kingston; this fine stone residence was built in 1820 by Colonel Donald Macpherson (c.1755-1829),[33] a maternal uncle of Sir John A. Macdonald.

Stanley was forbidden by his superiors at RMC from appearing in person before the Parliamentary Flag Committee, which was made up of 15 MPs from various federal political parties.

[35] Stanley's design was slightly modified by Jacques Saint-Cyr, a graphic artist with the Canadian Government Exhibition Commission (and ironically a Quebec sovereigntist),[36] who reduced the number of points on the stylized maple leaf from 13 to 11.

Unperturbed, he attended the ceremony in a colourful and quintessentially Canadian Hudson's Bay coat,[38] which stood out dramatically in a sea of dark formal attire worn by the other dignitaries.

[40] Stanley also suggested the name for the Canadian pale, an original vexillological and heraldic device first used in the Maple Leaf flag.

But what they created has lasted for nearly half a century and counting – flown from the top of the Peace Tower and from thousands of public and private buildings across the country, from embassies around the world, and recently, at Olympic medal ceremonies in Sochi, Russia.

"[41] Former Governor-General David Johnston has written in a "letter" to George Stanley, "Our flag dares us to press on with the unfinished work of our country: to be ever more free and fair, just and inclusive; to be keener of mind and kinder of heart.

"[42] In their book, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948 (1982), Irving Abella and Harold Troper quote a letter George Stanley wrote on 29 December 1938 to the federal Conservative leader, Robert James Manion, in support of a speech Manion had recently given in Quebec, opposing any immigration "so long as any Canadian remained unemployed.

At that moment (late December 1938), he found it difficult to sympathize with "those who shed tears over the fate of Jews in Europe and who raised funds for the assistance of foreign refugees ... [while they] ignore the distress on their own doorstep.

The exact nature of the Nazi regime was not entirely clear at the time, with many wrongly assuming that their anti-Jewish rhetoric would eventually cool rather than escalate to mass murder.

The Canadian government of the era turned away the MS St. Louis from Halifax in June 1939 and sent it back to Europe, where many of the Jewish refugees on board would eventually be murdered in the Holocaust.