25th April 2016
'Guernsey readers will read with interest of the adventure of Miss Violetta Thurstan, who is managing an ambulance unit in Spain.' This article, from the Star newspaper of April 1, 1937, recalls her war service and brings readers up to date with her activities in the Spanish Civil War. Violetta received the Mons Star, the Russian Royal Cross of St George, and, twice wounded, was awarded the Military Medal.
20th April 2016
From our newspaper collection. The Channel Islands News and Views, Vol. 2, no. 5, May 1948. Published by the Jersey and Guernsey Branches of the Communist Party, 30 Hue Street, Jersey and 6, Burnt Lane, Guernsey, and printed by Dorchester and District Newspapers Ltd. Joint editors: N S Le Brocq, 30 Hue Street, Jersey, and R G Hale, 6, Burnt Lane, Guernsey. Price: 2d. This number is the only example in our collection. Owing to its fragility, a scanned copy is available in the Library's Newspaper files. Any information about this publication would be most welcome. Here: A call for working-class women to stand for deputy in the island elections.
15th April 2016
A list of the contents of one of the former Chief Librarian's cuttings books, articles by Durand which he contributed to various publications, concerning his travels in Africa and elsewhere. The photograph above is one of several pasted into the book, and shows an abandoned Boer encampment.
21st March 2016
From the Star, March 10 and March 17, 1866.
3rd March 2016
From Cassell's Family Magazine, 1878 (the engraving accompanies the article), together with a couple of newspaper extracts.
19th February 2016
From Edith Carey's Wills & Legacies, I, in the Library Collection, staff, p. 180.
18th February 2016
A rather romanticised article by T Walter Carey, before 1892, probably from the Star newspaper. The photograph above is the one referred to in the article, from the Library Collection (blue cuttings book, Guernsey II, staff.) According to Lenfestey, H, Guernsey Place Names, 2014, this estate actually took its name from Magdeleine Gallienne, the widow of Abraham Lenfestey, in the early 18th century.
12th February 2016
A list of the nearly 200 wills dating from 1663-1707, transcribed and annotated by Edith Carey in 1916 in her notebook, Wills and legacies I & II, in the Staff collection at at the Library.
4th February 2016
‘April 1748. A prize, with wine and brandy, and a ransomer of £1000, taken by the Hanover privateer of Guernsey,’ reported in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1748. Ransoming captured prizes was a practice favoured by Guernsey privateers in the earlier years of privateering, often with an eye to selling on a valuable cargo, but frowned upon by the British authorities, who preferred prizes to be brought into port to be officially 'condemned.' When challenged upon the reason for their not having followed the authorized procedure, the Guernseymen would often answer that at the time they had been prevented by 'a contrary wind.'
28th January 2016
By George Rabey, in The Guernsey Free Churchman, Vol. VI (3) March, p. 27. 'A good 126 years ago now ...' The detail is of Etienne Gibert (1736-1817) amongst the crowd in Matthias Finucane's Market-Place, Guernsey, 1809. He is here aged about 73. For a somewhat less quirky portrait of him see Nicolas De Garis, conscientious objector; there is a third portrait of him, exhibiting considerably more dignitas, in the Library collection.
15th January 2016
No 21 from Vol. II of Edith Carey's book of transcripts, Wills & Legacies, in the Library (Staff). 'Moss Chiley' was possibly a Moses Chellew of Lugdvan. If anybody has any further information on this man, please contact the Library.
14th January 2016
Two similar and unpleasant cases from the first half of the 14th century, one in the time of Edward I, the second under Edward II. Original documents in Latin. The illustration is of a French girl of the period, from Mercuri and Bonnard's Costumes Historiques des XIIe-XVe siècles, Paris: A Lévy fils, 1860, I, p. 78, in the Library Collection.
