Victorian

Anne Sophia Harvey's servants, 1829-1845

15th December 2015

Detial of a Moss print of the Market Place, Guernsey, 1841, Priaulx Library Collection

From Anne Sophia Harvey's account books Domestic Expenditure, [from] 1 January 1829 (brown leather), and Anne Sophia Harvey's Household Expenditure, 1 July 1838, which ends in December 1842, part of Library's extensive Harvey Collection. Anne Sophia Grut (1802-1844) was daughter of Peter Grut and Anne Collings, and married John Harvey. The illustration is a detail from a 'Moss' print of 1841, Market Place, Guernsey, in the Library Collection.

Hundreds on the hills: a letter from Afghanistan, 1879

6th November 2015

Plan of attack from Major H Harvey's Afghan Letters in the Library Collection

From Major Harry Harvey of the King's Own Borderers' Afghan Letters, in the Library. His letters were copied by his sisters into notebooks. The schematic above accompanies this letter and next to it is noted: 'This formation kept off the tribes of whom there were hundreds on the hills. They were afraid to attack. HH.'

Forts, 1850

8th October 2015

Fort Hommet before 1955 by S M Henry, Priaulx Library Collection

From the Gazette de Guernesey, 16 February 1850. 'We thought it would be useful to list here, for the benefit of our readers, those forts and fortresses, built by the States for the defence of this Island in time of war, which have been handed over to the Government, as very few people are aware of them all.' The photograph is of Fort Hommet, by S M Henry, in the Library Collection. For further details on the individual sites see the Billet d'Etat for March 1908 in the Library Collection.

The Tchico

7th October 2015

A translation of George Métivier's dictionary entry for Guernsey's dread black dog, or Tchîco, p. 461. [By Dinah Bott]

Tenure of real property in the island of Guernsey

22nd September 2015

From The Law Magazine and Law Review, or Quarterly Journal of Jurisprudence, May-August 1859, pp. 23 ff. Probably a comment on the reaction in Government circles to the Commissioners' Report of 1848, it also happens to provide a helpful explanation of the distribution of landed property and rentes in Guernsey. 'When the right and power is preserved among a free people of regulating their own legal and social customs, the habit of self-government thus engendered generally saves their country from the anomaly and inconvenience of the institutions and procedure being immediately at variance with the wants and character of the people.'

Guernsey's Historical and Antiquarian Society

9th September 2015

First annual meeting.

Rozel Terrace School

6th August 2015

BOARDING AND DAY SCHOOL FOR YOUNG LADIES, conducted by Mrs S SPURGEON. From the Comet, February 1853.

Roadside letter-boxes

6th August 2015

From the Comet, February 1853.

On board the Tulloch Castle to Melbourne, 1852

27th July 2015

Journal Francis William Nicolle 1852, Priaulx Library Collection

The 1850s gold rush in Australia attracted thousand of immigrants and would-be prospectors, and Guernsey was by no means immune to gold fever. 18-year old William Francis Nicolle recorded his voyage to Melbourne in the summer of 1852 in his Journal, which was generously donated to the Library by Stephen Foote. Nicolle followed this with an account of his return from Australia in the freezing cold on board the Avon. His Journal also includes a substantial amount of family history material (Nicolle, De Garis, Lainé, Lamble &c.), as well as other accounts of later voyages made on board cargo ships. He was a carpenter by trade, and the book also includes carefully written instructions for calculations, presumably for reference purposes. Finally, his poem in memory of Nicholas de Mouilpied, who died on the voyage out, aged 22.

A stroll through town as it was 70 years ago

23rd July 2015

Commercial Arcade circa 1903, Priaulx library Collection

From the Star, July 1944. Funeral cheese and scarlet eggs, Granny Ogier, and a leopard and a Lamb. The illustration shows the Arcade around 1903; the shops are Roger's the jewellers and Cox's bootmakers.

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