19th century

Guernsey Newspapers

An overview from Duncan's Guernsey and Jersey Magazine, Vol. II, 1836. The Library has an extensive collection of these unique newspapers, many of which have been very kindly presented to the Library over the years, which can be viewed on request.

The Anglo-Sarnian Alliance: a poem

A poem reproduced in J. Linwood Pitts' Guernsey and its Bailiwick, 1889.

Census data, 1821

From the Gazette de Guernesey, 4th August 1821

Alderney and Sark, 1838: under a bright sun, there is beauty everywhere

Chamber’s Journal, 1838. 'Both Alderney and Serk enjoy an excellent climate, and on that account a few residents, chiefly retired officers, have fixed their abode in these islands. But the luxuries of life are too scarce to render the small Channel isles ever the chosen abode of the wealthy.' 'It may seem strange to say of any portion of the British dominions, that reading is unknown: such, however, is the case in Alderney.'

Sarnia: Brief Memorials of many of her sons (civil, military, and naval)

A digitized copy of Ferdinand Brock Tupper's collection of biographies of eminent Guernseymen, arranged chronologically, beginning with John Andros in 1554, and ending with the death of Bernard Ouseley Brownrigg in 1864.

Two letters on the Commissariat, by Havilland Le Mesurier

A supportive review of an important work by Havilland Le Mesurier, the letters following on from his System for the Commissariat of 1798, from The Critical Review, Vol. 9, 1807.

Lord Byron's Newfoundland Dog, 1823

Edward Le Mesurier was the son of Havilland Le Mesurier and Elizabeth Dobrée. He was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy before settling in Genoa, where he married Amelia Augusta Wright.

Cachemaille's The island of Sark: The Gouliot Caves

Gouliot caves, Sark, from the Priaulx Library Collection

An extract from the Reverend James Cachemaille's fascinating guide to his adopted home, translated from the French by Louisa Harvey. How his friend the Seigneur discovered the Gouliot Caves, once a famous tourist destination, and a description of their 'Chimney' souffleur in a gale. The photograph of the caves is part of the Priaulx Library Collection and dates from 1900.

L'Archipel de la Manche

Children, 1929, Priaulx Library Collection

We asked the question: who wrote the following and when? 'Cross a ravine, go down and across Mill Street, into a sort of fissure between two tall houses, climb up a narrow and interminable set of tortuously winding steps with loose paving stones, and you find yourself in a Bedouin village; hovels, cracks in the roads, dirt alleys, burnt gables, ruined houses, deserted rooms, windowless and doorless with grass growing inside them, beams across the road, ruins blocking the way, here and there an inhabited cottage, little naked boys, pale women; you would think you were in Zaatcha.' And gave you a clue: the original is in French. [By Dinah Bott]

Daniel de Lisle Brock and the British Government

'It has been truly said that the history of Guernsey, for the last fifty years of his life, was in fact the history of Daniel de Lisle Brock (A New General Biographical Dictionary, 1857).' The article reproduced below is from the Eclectic Review of 1845.

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