Articles

The Library's unique collections are a treasure chest of unusual, interesting and sometimes surprising material just waiting to be found. This anthology, written by the Editor, is based on an eclectic selection of our archive. The author asserts her copyright on all material on the Priaulx Library website except where copyright of other authors is expressly notified. Permission to reproduce material from this website and full attribution to the author is required in all cases.

18th century

Major Byng

Major William Byng is the best-known Guernsey dueller; there is a stone in Cambridge Park commemorating his death in 1795. Guernseymen were forbidden to duel in Guernsey and would usually travel to Jersey to fight it out, so the majority of duels that have taken place here in the island of which we know any details occurred between locals and a member of the garrison; in this case a quarrel arose between two serving soldiers.

Thomas de Sausmarez

From Edith Carey's Scrapbooks (Vol. 1: the Chepmell MS) in the Library. 'He had 28 children, but never more than 14 alive at a time.'

The sweetest place in Guernsey: Candie

From W T Money's diary of his visit to Guernsey in 1798, edited by Edith Carey, and reproduced in the Report and Transactions of the Societe Guernesiaise (1931). Not much has changed, not even the views from the Library that Money so much appreciated.

List of residents of Alderney who sheltered French priests 1792-3

The names of the Alderney people have been extracted and normalised.

Prizes

Privateering action in the 18th century.

Views of James Saumarez in 1801

'A good deal of the grimace of a Frenchman'. A short biography from The European Magazine, and London Review, for October 1801; and a less kind opinion of the Admiral, written by Admiral Thomas Byam Martin, a veteran of his campaigns who had fallen out with him, parts of whose account are often regarded as at the least fanciful. Saumarez was prone to depression, however.

Ship movements, 1762

A selection from the London Chronicle, 1762.

Eleazar Le Marchant (1743-1832)

An excerpt from Guernsey in the Thirties: Remininscences of the late Rev. M. Gallienne, part V, in the Star, February 1901.

Muskets, 1744

Distribution of muskets by the British Government to the inhabitants of Guernsey, October 1744. Said to come from a manuscript in the hand of George Syvret, dated 1817.

Isaac Brock: letters after his death, 1813

'Poor General Brock's high spirit would never descend to particulars.' Contemporary letters that vary in their opinon of Guernseyman Sir Isaac Brock, from A Documentary History of the Campaign upon the Niagara Frontier in 1813. 'Alas! my dear Colonel, we are now no longer commanded by Brock, and our situation is most materially changed for the worse. Confidence seems to have vanished from the land, and gloomy despondency has taken its place.' Brock's own voice can be heard in his letters, in The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock, K.B: interspersed with notices of the celebrated Indian chief, Tecumseh collected and edited by his star-struck nephew, Ferdinand Brock Tupper, copies of which are available in the Library.

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