28th October 2016
From Old Guernsey Exhibition and Fair Souvenir Guide and Programme, St Martin's Parish Hall, Guernsey: T B Banks & Co., 1908, p. 29. The painting of the Queen Charlotte Inn above, a detail of a larger view of Cow Lane, dates from c. 1800; it exists only as a photograph, as its whereabouts since WWII are at present unknown. The colour image is a detail of a painting by Captain C Montague Jones, possibly based up on it, painted 50 years or so later. The original of the Jones watercolour is in the Guille-Allès Library, Guernsey.
25th October 2016
In Guernsey in 1858 Victor Hugo became seriously ill with anthrax. It was apparently after recovering from this near-fatal illness that he was persuaded to grow a beard, as a protection for his throat; the first photograph of him sporting a beard was taken on 5 May 1861 on a visit to Brussels, during his trip to finish Les Misérables. For a while he allowed it to grow luxuriantly, but soon smartened it up and adopted the shorter beard now so familiar from photographs. Above is a portrait of one of Hugo's hairdressers, James Le Gallez, by kind permission of Ann Philippo. This is part of the Victor Hugo and Guernsey project. [By Dinah Bott]
18th October 2016
From Brouard's Guernsey Almanack of 1849, p. 51. Those marked with an asterisk were both boarding and day schools.
29th September 2016
Will no. 175 from Edith Carey's set of transcripts, Wills & Legacies, Staff, in the Library.
28th September 2016
The progression of the epidemic. From the Comet, Monday November 5, 1832.
13th September 2016
Tales of the shapeshifter Benez of the Clos du Valle. The woodcut is from Dr Thomas Bellamy's Pictorial Directory & Stranger's Guide to Guernsey, 1843, in the Library Collection.
8th September 2016
Guernsey Market Place [in 1809], with key. 1809 [1822]. 'Grand, grand old picture.' If you wish to reproduce any of these images, please contact a Librarian.
1st September 2016
Carteret Priaulx & Co set out the terms and conditions for agents for their privateer the New Daphné, in the Library's MS notebook 'List of privateers and prizes,' perhaps belonging originally to Ferdinand Brock Tupper. The same source lists the Daphne as a lugger captained by A Queripel in 1790, Patrick Harry in 1795, and then by John King. 'Agreed between Messrs C Priaulx & Co. & Messrs Ninian Douglas & John Dadson, the former on the one part acting for the owners of the New Daphné letter of Marque Capt John King bound from this port, to the Earl of St Vincent’s fleet & Gibraltar & the latter, for themselves going out, as Supercargo’s on the above letter of Marque on the voyage stipulated Viz:'
1st September 2016
From Edith Carey's Wills and Legacies, a MS transcription of early Guernsey wills from the Ecclesiastical Court records, p 112.
31st August 2016
An Act of the Privy Council concerning jurats, defining a quorum. In 1709, so many of the jurats had had to stand down in a case concerning prizes awarded to the Marlborough privateer that none had been left to judge the case. They had been stood down because they were related to either the plaintiffs or the defendants. This transcription comes from a MS notebook, Lists of privateers and prizes, in the Library collection.
25th August 2016
'Report from the missions: a letter from Monsieur de Putron, to the Editor. Quebec, January 1, 1817.' From the Magasin Méthodiste, 1818, p. 91, addressed to Jean de Queteville, Methodist pioneer and founder and editor of the magazine. Guernsey began very early to export French-speaking missionaries all over the world; poor Jean de Putron, however, felt let down by his Guernsey accent and inferior French, as spoken in Guernsey.
20th August 2016
Matthias Finucane, Métivier's 'cheerful son of Erin, bon enfant.' Above: detail from Market Place, Guernsey: Reverend Martineau.
