Thomas Kennedy
Sir John Doyle's great friend: his obituary in The United Services Magazine.
Napoleonic
Les Ollivier du Coin des Ecailles
From the Magasin Methodiste, LIV, 1880, pp. 28-9.
Nicolas De Garis, conscientious objector, 1805
By H D Olivier, from The Guernsey Free Churchman, March 1932, p. 23. 'Not honesty in the abstract but Honest is my name. And I want the kind of person I am to match what I am called.' The portrait is of a sympathizer, Etienne Gibert, Rector of St Andrew, the frontispiece of his biography, published in Toulouse in 1889, by Daniel Benoît, Les Frères Gibert, du désert et du refuge. This book includes the life of his brother Louis, also a Protestant minister, who emigrated to South Carolina.
The Fund for the Relief of Guernsey Prisoners in France, 1806
Supplement to the Gazette de Guernesey of 16 August 1806.
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.
'A kindness I never, never can forget'
A memoir of the late Colonel Havilland Le Mesurier. From the Gentleman's Magazine of 1814.
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.
The Doyle Cup
From the Library and Museum of Freemasonry.
A melancholy pleasure: Nicolas Dobree and the heroes of Cobo
'But oh! what a tragic story we have to relate.' The bravery of a group of men from the Castel and their untimely deaths on the Gros Rock, March 9th, 1818; Nicolas Dobree, R.N., the two brothers Henry and George Le Tissier, Daniel Nicolle, and Captain Collenette. The photograph above shows the rock. 'Ils ont peri, meme en accomplissant un oeuvre de charite.'
One brave soldier: the death of Thomas Falla, aged 18
From the Diary of Colonel Bayly (1796-1830), of the 12th Regiment, p. 87. Thomas Falla was the son of the late Daniel Falla and Susanne Le Pelley, of the Maisons au Compte. His memorial is in St Sampson's Church. The picture above shows 'The Storming of Seringapatam, 4th May 1799 (Sutherland Highlanders),' from the Library Collection, and below is a photograph of the posthumous medal awarded to Thomas.