Case Study
The English Butcher and the Brewer
Maria Rosetti - from St Peter Port to revolution
The Family of Major-General J. Gaspard Le Marchant
The Heaumes of Guernsey County
Ralph Durand (1876-1945)
Ralph Durand came from an important Guernsey Huguenot family and was the Librarian at the Priaulx before and during the Second War. He was an explorer and author whose family history, described here, is full of interest, and includes refugees, soldiers, ministers, a provost of Eton, an actor-manager, and politicians.
The Career of a Rolling Stone is the title of an autobiographical article published in the Pall Mall Gazette of 1922 by Ralph Anthony Durand, who was Librarian at the Priaulx Library from 1929 to 1945. He is often misleadingly referred to as an “adventurer”; he seems rather to have been an intelligent and humble man of good family, little means, but a great deal of gumption, who was sympathetic and humanitarian, with experience of and special interest in Africa and the welfare of its people, and whose main ambition was to make a living as an author, in which he perhaps succeeded.
Ralph Durand was born in 1876, the son of the Reverend Havilland Durand and his wife, Mary Hawtrey. Durand is a common name in France, and although there have been several Durand/Durant families resident in Guernsey*, Ralph Durand’s family were Huguenot refugees of noble origin. More than one unrelated Huguenot family of that name fled France to Britain following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Guernsey Durands coming from Montpellier; they found the road to freedom somewhat rocky, in circumstances typical of the Huguenots of that time.
What we know of Durand family history¹ begins with Jean (b. 1620), who was a pastor "prétendu reformé" at Montpellier, and his wife, Cathérine d'Auriol². His son François Guillaume Durand (b. 1649) married Anne de Brueyx, daughter and heiress of the Baron de Fontcouverte, and the family styled themselves thereafter Durand de Fontcouverte. François studied at Geneva and was appointed pastor at Genouillac and Uzès. Following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, all Huguenot property in Montpellier was seized and bought from the Crown by one André d’Audipret. Anne and their son Daniel Francois Durand were captured, but François escaped. Anne was perhaps imprisoned in a convent, which was a common fate for Huguenot women; children under seven years old were supposedly allowed to leave the country with their fathers, but five-year-old Daniel François was in effect sent to be “re-educated” in a Catholic household.³ In spite of great danger (as he should have left the country within 15 days), François went in to hiding to try to see Anne, but was unsuccessful. He fled France and went to Switzerland. Later he raised levies for William III’s Huguenot regiments4 while acting as military Chaplain in Westphalia and elsewhere. He was appointed pastor of the Walloon Church at Nijmegen in 1701. The same year [Daniel] François qualified in law at the University of Montpellier and took up a Captain’s commission to raise a company for the King, receiving especial mention for his bravery and loyalty to the Royal cause. However, in 1705 he obtained a passport for his wife (who was none other than the daughter of André d’Audipret, the buyer - perhaps saviour - of the Huguenot property in 1685) and their child to travel to Lyons, in which they were styled “anciens catholiques”. He was, however, a Protestant. Between that date and 1722 he finally seems to have rejoined his father and practised law in Leiden, though nothing more is to be heard of his mother.
Daniel's daughter Grace married Rev. J Daniel de Loches, who bore the same name as one of the regiments to which her grandfather had been attached. Another daughter died unmarried and left property on the Rhine to her younger brother, François Guillaume Essaie Durand. It is with this man that the family makes its first connection to Guernsey, although there is correspondence between his grandfather and Edward d'Auvergne of Jersey (Chaplain to William III's Scots Guards) discussing a removal to England which never took place.
F. G. E. Durand was born at Nijmegen in 1714. He married Marthe Marie Goutelles in 1742; he had been admitted to the Church at Breda and the next year sailed to England to become Pastor to the Dutch Church at Norwich. He then became Minister to the French Church at Canterbury. He was also given the living of the combined parishes of St Sampson and the Vale in Guernsey, but installed a Curate and remained at Canterbury, where he died in 1789. His son Daniel François Durand was one of his curates for a short time; he went on to become Dean of St Peter Port in 1795.
After a stint as an army chaplain and six years as a curate, Daniel François left Guernsey and took up a post as tutor to a young gentleman on the Grand Tour. He visited his relations in the South of France, where he was invited to become a naturalized Frenchman, join the Roman Catholic Church and become Baron de Fontcouverte. The Library has a letter of 1818, which though unsigned and addressed Dear Sir, may well have been written by him and from which his reaction to these overtures can perhaps be judged.
"... the Chevalier died the day before I left Montpellier exactly on the very day week I had had the scene with the Priest which I gave you the substance of in my last letter. I had not seen him since nor have I been able to obtain any account of the manner in which he died as my brother arrived a few days after my last visit ... there is not much room to hope that he died in Christ as he certainly gave me sufficient evidence though Lipynol(?) agrees with me in thinking that he began to feel the influence of the Gospel, and would perhaps have been happy if this untimely affair with the priest had not taken place ... But enough of this ageeable affair which really has taught what Catholics are and that all grace is from God ..."
The Dean married Ann de Jersey, daughter of Richard de Jersey and Magdelaine Sauvère. He was Principal of Elizabeth College from 1780-1794 and was still in office as Dean when he died aged 86. He had several children, amongst whom was Havilland Durand (1799-1843), Rector of Câtel Church. He married Maria Caroline (d. 1894), daughter of Peter Maingay and Margaret Coutart. Their son Havilland was Ralph Durand's father and Ralph is buried in the Maingay family vault.
Ralph, however, had even stronger connections with Guernsey than did his Durand forebears. His mother, Mary Hawtrey, was the daughter of the Reverend Montague Hawtrey of Berkshire and Louisa Dobrée. Louisa was descended from several important and wealthy Guernsey familes, including Carey, De Beauvoir, Le Marchant, and De Lisle; the niece of Admiral James de Saumarez, she was the direct descendant of 
Nicholas Dobrée (1705-47) on both her mother’s side by his first wife, Elisabeth Le Marchant, and on her father's side by his second wife, Martha de Lisle. Ralph’s great-aunt, Louisa Charlotte Durand, had married as her second husband Jean de Saumarez Dobrée, his grandmother Louisa’s cousin. Marriage between cousins of varying degrees was still common, and the social pool relatively (and deliberately) small.
The Priaulx Library has a copy of a very affecting diary kept by Louisa of the year 1839, when she was 19 years old, in which she describes meeting her future husband. She had an active social life which she describes in a lively and surprisingly modern manner; many of her young friends were people who went on to play an important part in the history of Guernsey at that period, and they are brought tantalisingly to life in her pages. Despite an obvious fancy for the Governor’s son, she decides in the end, after much agonizing, to marry the intense, older (and rather High Church) Montague, who was in the island with his father, also a minister, and his several siblings. Montague Hawtrey was given the position of curate to St James in 1839; the church was built under the auspices of Admiral James de Saumarez, to serve the growing English-speaking population of the island (many of whom had a military background); all other island church services were conducted in French. Montague’s father, the Reverend John Hawtrey, had bought land in Wellington and Montague later became an influential policy advisor on New Zealand to the Colonial Office, with special interest in the welfare of the Maori, passing on his Humanitarian ideas to his grandson Ralph. In addition to Louisa Dobree’s diaries, the Library has copies of letters written by her cousins, Martha, Anne, Harriet, and Mary, daughter of Isaac Dobrée and Anne de Saumarez, which cover the same period. They shared the same social circle, and comment on the same matters. On 3 April 1839, Julia Routh writes:
That lucky Mr Hawtrey has all his four sons here for the last fortnight, such pets! I am so sorry they are going next week, the two eldest are clergymen and have preached alternately with him since they arrived, it is quite interesting. I wish you could hear Montague the eldest, fancy, we very nearly preferred him to Dr Jennings; he has nothing to recommend him in his outward appearance or delivery for he is very ugly and painfully shy, so they say, but when he begins!!
In 1841 Louisa writes from Rimpton (near Sherborne) to Gother Mann: “I wish I could see you and show you my baby [Ralph de Beauvoir], he is such a beautiful child. We have no society except a few homely uninteresting clergymen’s wives. However we continue very happy at home and I do not regret the gay parties at the [Assembly] Rooms!” Louisa went on to write two children’s books, one about the siege of Castle Cornet in the Civil War, and the other on a similar theme about a famous member of the Hawtrey family, Lady Mary Bankes, and the siege of Corfe Castle in Dorset, and to have twelve children, one of whom was Ralph's mother.
The Hawtreys were of Norman origin; their name was de Haute-rive, and they held the manor of Hawtrey in Buckinghamshire; they were the original builders of Chequers. The family was of significance in the Tudor period. Later they formed a very strong connection with Eton school; the Reverend John Hawtrey, who was Montague’s great-grandfather, had been a Fellow at the school; he was also grandfather to Edward Craven Hawtrey, one of the most well-known Headmasters and Provost; Montague’s uncle and brother Stephen (who wrote on education) were masters there. The family maintained their tradition of providing schooling for many years, setting up several free and private schools.
Ralph was born in the rectory at Earley, near Reading, one of seven children. His father Havilland appears to have been as enterprising as his son, for at the age of seventeen he left Guernsey to become a coffee planter in Ceylon; ten years later he went up to Exeter College, Oxford, obtaining his MA in 1871, when he married Mary Hawtrey. Two of Ralph’s sisters married back into the Hawtrey family, with the result that Ralph became brother-in-law of the famous comic actor-manager Sir Charles Hawtrey.
Ralph married Violet Picton-Warlow in 1904 at her family home, Ewenny Priory in Glamorgan. Her father was Colonel John Picton-Warlow, who had inherited the estate in 1867 and had changed his name at that juncture to Picton-Turberville (the Turberville family had held the manor earlier). According to the 1901 census she was born about 1873 in the East Indies; her brother is given on the 1901 census as a tea planter in Ceylon, so perhaps the original link between Ralph, whose father was out in Ceylon, and Violet, lies there. Her father was three times married; her mother, whom he married in 1866 in the East Indies, was Eleanor Temple, a descendant of Sir Richard Grenville; she was daughter of Lieut.-Col. Sir Grenville Temple of Stowe, 10th Bart (b. 1799) and Mary Baring, (1799-1847). Eleanor died in 1887, having had 10 children, including three sets of twins; the Colonel’s third wife, Caroline, also went on to have several children. Three years younger than Violet, her sister, Edith Picton-Turberville, became one of the first female MPs, representing the Wrekin. The children seem to have been brought up by an aunt as their parents were out in the East Indies, and although the family is said to have been conservative, their mother Eleanor was an Evangelical Christian and Edith became a radical Labour activist with a missionary zeal. She made an important contribution to the advancement of women’s rights and like the Durands had a humanitarian interest in the welfare of indigenous peoples in the British Colonies, writing influential reports, including the prevention of the execution of pregnant women. Neither Edith nor her twin sister, Beatrice, married. Beatrice was also a philanthropist and active with her sister. She became the Governor of the Barnardo’s Girl’s Village Home at Barkingside.
Violet and Ralph had no children. Ralph stayed in Guernsey during the war (just avoiding deportation, as he had been born in the UK), but, exhausted by the privations he had suffered, he died in 1945 before seeing the publication of his valuable account of the war years, Guernsey under German rule, which he wrote as official historian of the Occupation. His wife survived him.
*Mount Durand in St Peter Port is not named for this family; it was already referred to as Le Bordage or Bordier Durant in the mediaeval Patent Rolls.
¹ Much of this information has been taken from a Durand family tree by Marie-Louise Luxemburg, a copy of which is held in the Priaulx Library. Other sources include "History of a Huguenot Family", from the Guernsey Magazine, May and June 1873, and Agnew, David. C. A., Protestant exiles from France in the reign of Louis XIV: or the Huguenot refugees and their descendants in Great Britain and Ireland, London, Reeves and Turner, 1874, (also available); Winterflood, H., Guernsey Press 15/09/07, pp. 20-1 covers the history in more detail. Portraits of the Durand ministers have recently been gifted to the Candie Museum by Nicholas Drake, who has also donated important family papers to the Island Archives. Please contact the Library should you require further information.
² "beaucoup d'Auriol languedociens furent protestants".
³ His younger brother David seems to have avoided the same fate; having studied in Basle, he went on to become Pastor of the famous French Church of the Savoy in London; an author and translator, he became a Member of the Royal Society in 1728.
4 There is correspondence between François and Edward d'Auvergne of Jersey (Chaplain to William III's Scots Guards) discussing a removal to England which never took place.
Other items of interest:
Hawtrey, Montague: An Earnest Address to New Zealond Colonists, with reference to their intercourse with the native inhabitants, London, J. W. Parker, 1840
Maria Rosetti
From St Peter Port to revolution
A request from Angela Jianu¹ of Warwick University for some research into the birth data of Marie Grant of St Peter Port has revealed the extraordinary history of a Romantic heroine, born here in Guernsey in 1819, daughter of Marie Le Lacheur, descendant of the Le Lacheurs of the Forest, and known today to all Romanians through her depiction as Revolutionary Romania², and because one of the main streets in Bucharest bears her name: Strada Maria Rosetti.
Marie Grant was the second of six children born to Marie Le Lacheur (b. 1789), daughter of Jean Le Lacheur and Ester Vaudin of St Peter Port, and Lieutenant Edward Effingham Grant (b. 1795), son of Charles and Ann Grant. Marie and Edward were married in St Peter Port in 1817. She went on to marry Constantin A. Rosetti, poet, Francophile, journalist, revolutionary and political leader who eventually became Romanian Minster of the Interior. His entry in Wikipedia³, by Marin Bucur, says of him:
C. A. Rosetti will always be remembered as the founder of the free, democratic press in Romania, one of the fathers of the democratic movement in Romania, and an idealist and a visionary to the highest degree of devotion and commitment. At times this became obsessive ... However, it would not be amiss to say that Rosetti taught and educated the Romanians to a greater degree than anyone else in the 19th century about the fundamental values of the ethical, political and civil heritage of the European democratic movement.
Marie had four living siblings: Effingham (b. 1820), Sophia (b. 1821), Ann Mayer (b. 1822), and Eliza Marian (b. 1824), all named after their father’s relatives. Jean Vidamour, who originally researched Marie’s birth data, could only find one of these children, Eliza Marian, still living in Guernsey by the time of the 1841 census. She was seventeen years old and living in the home of a French merchant called Josué Massoneau and his wife, Margueritte. This nugget was to prove very important when it came to establishing the familial relationships surrounding Marie Grant and confirming her mother’s parentage; her aunt Charlotte (b. 1781) was godparent to two of Eliza's siblings and married Auguste Massoneau of Maine-et-Loire in 1824. Eliza married William Sarchet in Guernsey in 1855.
Marie’s father, Edward Effingham Grant, was born in Markyate in Hertfordshire in 1795. His ancestry, however, is full of interest. He had served as Lieutenant in the 8th West India Regiment of Foot and then in the Royal African Corps, on half-pay from 1819-1832. The West India Regiments4 were raised at the end of the eighteenth century and patrolled the Caribbean. The officers tended to be Scots or Irish, the foot soldiers black, and the conditions in which they served less than ideal, yellow fever killing a great many. The Royal Africa Corps was originally made up of criminals and the dishonourably discharged, but by 1819 had been reformed and regularised, seeing action in Sierra Leone and undertaking journeys of exploration into the African interior. Edward Effingham Grant entered the 8th West India as Lieutenant aged 17, so presumably purchased the commission; although he was of Scottish descent and born in England, his family were planters in Antigua and St Vincent, near where the Regiment had its headquarters in Trinidad. The Napoleonic Wars caused the price of sugar to slump, and the plantation owners of the West Indies had begun to fall on hard times. In addition, retired officers on half-pay found the low taxes and mild climate of the Channel Islands to their liking.
When Marie Grant married C. A. Rosetti, who was a boyar, or nobleman, the arms of the Grants of Carron and Spey were incorporated into Rosetti. A family tree of the Grants of Carron and the Islands of Antigua and St Vincent5 includes Edward and his siblings, and reveals in part how this branch of the illustrious Grants of Spey came to reside in the West Indies, having previously lived at Holyrood House in Edinburgh. The family ancestry is far from straightforward, but both Charles Grant of the Adelphi Estate in St Vincent, Edward’s father, and his grandfather, Captain James Grant of Holyrood, left their estates deeply in debt and their children penniless. This large family, many of whom married cousins and other more distant relations, included several distinguished members, but those who were down on their luck seem to have turned to Antigua and the several estates of Dr Patrick Grant, a surgeon who willed his leases to his nephews, one of whom was Edward’s grandfather. Curiously, although Edward married Marie Le Lacheur in Guernsey in 1817, a Charles Grant of Antigua married Elizabeth Guilbert, daughter of John, in St Peter Port in 1799; they had a son, John Charles, whose godmother was another Marie Le Lacheur; and it may be that Edward, who had many Grant cousins, came to Guernsey to visit him. Edward’s mother died in 1796 in Antigua and his father, Charles Grant, returned to England; he appears to have remarried, but whether he is the Charles who married in Guernsey is as yet unknown. He eventually died in Marseilles in 1821.
Marie Grant’s mother, Marie Le Lacheur, was the youngest of eleven children. Her mother, Ester Vaudin, was from a Huguenot family, long established in Guernsey and Sark, that retained its strong religious connections; her godparents included her aunt, Anne Gaudry; many other non-Guernsey French names feature in her family tree. Her father came from the old Guernsey family of Le Lacheur of the Forest.
In 1837 Marie’s son, Effingham, Marie Grant's brother, found a post in Bucharest with the British Consul in Wallachia (southern Romania), Robert Colquhoun6. Colquhoun and his circle sympathised with the revolutionary aims of the liberal nobility. Marie went out to join him as a governess to the family of a Colonel in the Militia, one of whom was the future writer and politician, Alexandru Odobescu. She met Rosetti there, and they married first at her family house, by then in Plymouth, and then in an Orthodox ceremony in Vienna.
Marie Grant, now Maria Rosetti, had some difficulty gaining acceptance into boyar society, but came into her own in the year of Revolution, 1848. Constantin Rosetti had spent some time in Paris, where he had been befriended by the poet Lamartine, patron of the Romanian exiles in France, and influential historian Jules Michelet, another supporter of Romanian radicalism. In 1848, also a year of upheaval in France, Rosetti and his colleagues encouraged a popular rebellion in Romania; the Ottoman Turks moved in and arrested them. Rosetti, who had sat on the new Provisional Government, and other prominent rebels, were taken by barge to Sviniţa, near the port of Orschowa on the Danube. With her friend, the Jewish artist Constantin Daniel Rosenthal, Maria followed the ships on shore; upon arrival, she persuaded the Austrian mayor that the Ottomans had stepped out of their jurisdiction; she got the guards drunk, the Austrians disarmed them, and the Rosettis fled to France. Her role in this last stage of the revolution was celebrated by French historian Jules Michelet in his 1851 essay Madame Rosetti,7 and by her husband, who compared her to Anita, the wife of Garibaldi, with whom he was acquainted. The family finally returned to Romania after the 1856 Treaty of Paris, and their aim of uniting Wallachia and Moldavia was effectively realised in 1859.
Her friend Daniel Rosenthal ensured that Maria Rosetti’s image became iconic, comparable in Romania to that of Marianne in France. A series of paintings by Matisse, known as La blouse romaine and The Dream, were surely inspired by it.8
Around 1850, Rosenthal completed one of his most celebrated paintings, România revoluţionară (Revolutionary Romania). A national personification showing a woman in Romanian folk costume, it was also a portrait of Maria Rosetti. The artist died in July 1851, after his attempt to cross into Wallachia was intercepted by Austrian authorities, who tortured him to death in his native Budapest. In 1878, Maria Rosetti wrote in her Mama şi Copilul magazine:
"[Rosenthal was] one of the best and the most loyal people that God created after His image. He died for Romania, for its liberties; he died for his Romanian friends. [...] This friend, this son, this martyr of Romania is an Israelite. His name was Daniel Rosenthal."9
Of Maria Rosetti’s eight children, four died as infants. Libertate Sofia (“Libby”, b. 1848) and three sons born in exile, Mircea, Vintilă, and Horia, survived. Maria became a journalist and writer, particularly concerned with the liberation of women, eventually editing her own magazine, Mama şi Copilul, which dealt with issues surrounding motherhood from something of a feminist perspective. She became well known for her charity work, especially after 1875, when her husband became a minister in the government of the National Liberal Party. In 1877, as Romania proclaimed her independence and joined the Russians in the war against the Ottomans, in which two of her sons fought, Maria Rosetti raised enough funds to establish a hospital to help the wounded.
Upon her death, a large obituary was published in the National Liberal newspaper Voinţa Naţională, who proclaimed her one of the most outstanding Romanian women of her generation.
She is one of the characters in Camil Petrescu's novel Un om între oameni, “A man amongst women” (unfinished at his death in 1957) and perhaps inspired Ivy Compton-Burnett, who features a feminist schoolteacher named Maria Rosetti in her comic novel “More women than men” (1933).
In addition to the street in central Bucharest, a school in the Floreasca area of the city is also named after her. Her brother Effingham, born in Guernsey, has also left a lasting legacy in Bucharest. He married Zoia Racoviţă, a Romanian aristocrat. She owned land in central Bucharest, where she and her husband, both revolutionary sympathisers, bankrolled the 'Rosetti-Winterhalder Company', created in the 1840s by Constantin Rosetti and his friend Henric Winterhalder. The revenues from a book-shop, a lending library, and a delicatessen were used to fund the activities of the rebels in exile after the defeat of the revolution. He later sold the estate and the area was known for a time as “Grant”. The main railway station in Bucharest was built there; one of the main bridges in the city still bears his name, Podul Grant.10 His son Nicolae was a well-known artist.
If you are interested in this family and would like any further details, please contact a librarian.
1. Angela Jianu is a native of Romania, resident in the UK. She has a Ph.D. in history from the University of York, UK (2004) and works as an Open Studies tutor at the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Warwick. Having always been interested in Marie and her group, she conceived the idea of a book on the Wallachian Revolution of 1848 while working on her doctoral thesis. The book, provisionally entitled A Circle of Friends - Political Exile and the Creation of Modern Romania, is awaiting publication.
2. This 1850 portrait is in the National Museum of Art in Bucharest. Angela Iacob of the National Museum of Art had this to say to us about the painting:
The artist, Constantin D.Rosenthal was born in 1820 in Budapest, moved to Bucharest in 1840 and started painting portraits amongst the circle of young intellectuals, thus meeting C.A.Rosetti and establishing a powerful bond with him. He was a prominent participator in the Revolution of 1848. When the Revolution ended with a failure, he and Maria Rosetti followed the Turkich ships along the Danube (they were transporting the captures revolutionaries from Rusciuk to Vidin) and managed to free the prisoners near Orsova. Afterwards, the two became exiles and, after several adventures, Rosenthal reached Paris. He kept in touch with the other exiled Romanians and portrayed Maria Rosetti in the "Revolutionary Romania" painting. This is one of the most popular works of art in Romanian painting and it depicts the revolutionary ideal. The revolutionary committee intended to make a lithograph of it and use it as propaganda material, as was the case with another one of Rosenthal's paintings "Romania breaking her shackles on the Plain of Freedom". The work was originally known by various titles: "Young Wallachian Woman", "Romania on 13-25 of September 1848", "Romania", "Portrait os Mrs.R.", "Head of a woman". Maria Rosetti, her husband and other personalities of that era were important models for many of Rosenthal's works. Angela has been kind enough to allow us to reproduce both portraits of Maria here.
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Rosetti. Quotations here are from this article.
4. For more on the history of these regiments see http://website.lineone.net/~bwir/regiments.htm.
5. The History of the Island of Antigua, Vere Langford Oliver, 1894, 3 vols, p. 426. An interesting discussion of the social history of the Antigua plantation owners at this period (with relation to Jane Austen) is to be found in http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/antigua/conference/papers/davis.html.
6. The Grants and the Colquhouns were related; Edward had a brother, George Colquhoun Grant, who became Governor of St Lucia. Sir James Grant (b. 1679), had married the heiress Anne Colquhoun on condition he took her name. He later reverted to the title Grant of Grant.
7. Jules Michelet's famous essay, dedicated to Maria's daughter: http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/CadresFenetre?O=NUMM-30822&I=292&M=imageseule. For another account of Maria and her husband see http://depts.washington.edu/cartah/text_archive/sam/15.shtml.
9. The Jews were heavily discriminated against by law in Romania, and the Revolution did little to help the majority of them, although Rosenthal was among about 800 who were given special privileges.
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podul_Grant
A Rosetti family tree can be found here ( a .pdf file).
The Harvey Family
Throughout the occupation of Guernsey (1940-45) Winifred Harvey (1888-1976) kept a diary, which has been edited and published under the title The Battle of Newlands¹, and which is still in print. In keeping her diary, she followed a family tradition; the Harveys have left behind them comprehensive records from the middle of the 19th century, so detailed that their lives could virtually be reconstructed from them, and much of that material is here at the Library. Winifred Harvey was a leading light in the Guernsey Guiding movement². She was extremely public-spirited, following the family tradition. She lived at Newlands, a large house in Prince Albert's Road in St Peter Port, which her father bought in 1906, and in which she remained until infirmity forced her to leave in 1975, having never married.
Through the Victorian and Edwardian period the family included several long-lived spinsters, who kept scrapbooks and copied all their correspondence, as well as that of their close family members. They kept almost everything, and their journals and diaries can now be found shared between the Priaulx Library and the Island Archives. In addition they retained older family documents, including wills and property transactions.
Winifred’s immediate family had a strong link with the army, in particular, the 25th Regiment of Foot, known as the King’s Own (Scottish) Borderers. Her father, Henry James Harvey (1840-1921), retired as Major in 1888 at the age of 47. In 1849, his brother, Ensign John Richard Harvey, from 77th foot, was made Ensign in the 25th Foot, vice Maunsell, who retired; this seems serendipitously to be the beginning of their long familial association. Another brother, Thomas Peter, became a Major in the 77th Foot, and died at Weymouth. John Richard retired as Lieutenant-Colonel in 1885; he has left behind him an extraordinarily rich set of papers, including detailed illustrated journals and scrapbooks of his time in India and his voyage around the dominions in various military ships, collecting and delivering invalided soldiers. Henry James was later promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel. He served in the Afghan War (1878-9) (a report by him of an action in the Khyber may be found here) and in 1887 married Beatrice Emmeline, daughter of Rev. James Watson, Vicar of All Saints’, Upper Norwood, London, at Futegharh. They produced three children: Winifred Beatrice (b. 1888), Edith Mary (b. 1890), and Henry John (b. 1892). Henry became a Colonel in the KOSB, having survived the first war.
The Harveys were a wealthy family. They claimed descent from the Harveys of Hale in Linkinhorne, a parish near Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. A search of the records of the area does indeed reveal a long Harvey history there, with the family receiving subsidies from Henry VIII; there may well be connections with an extinct peerage - Harvey of Hale in Linkinhorne — three descents before 1620. Arms: — Arg. a chevron between three harrows, Sable.³ A note amongst their papers shows an attempt at a family tree, with the oldest ancestors named as John Harvey and Jane Gwavas, who married in 1695; unfortunately the records from Linkinhorne, although comprehensive, are not complete and no trace of John and Jane Gwavas is detectable there (although the Gwavas name is very localised in other parts of Cornwall and the couple may remain to be found elsewhere). T. F. Priaulx’s article4, with which he was helped by Winifred Harvey, refers to an unspecified Harvey (who could be John and Jane's son) coming to Alderney as a shipmaster and marrying a Miss Blaize, whence the couple removed to Guernsey. However, the inscription on the family vault in the Brother's Cemetery in St Peter Port does not bear this out. It is also possible that the Guernsey family is linked with the Harvey wine merchant family in Bristol, but no concrete evidence is as yet available to corroborate this. The Library’s first reference to the Harveys in St Peter Port is to John (d. 1778), whose marriage to Margaret Anne Parker (d. 1790) is recorded in 1759. Amongst the papers, the 1767 will of Jane Harvey, wife of William Vionnée, mariner, names her mother, Jane Harvey, as beneficiary; the mother may have been John Harvey's sister. This awaits confirmation. The Harvey papers include several 18th century legal documents that involve Margaret Anne and John Harvey, mostly in disputes over property with other members of the Parker family, from which a Parker family tree can be gleaned; her father, Daniel Parker, is documented as renting out property in the Pollet in 1719; his father was Pierre Parker Snr, and he had brothers Pierre Jr, Samuel, and Robert as well as a sister, Elizabeth, all of whom survived to be of an age to quarrel over inheritances in the 1760s. The Parkers (or Parquer) can be traced in Guernsey back to the middle of the 17th century (see too Old Court below).
John and Margaret Anne lost several of their children, but John, born in 1771, survived and married Elizabeth Guille, daughter of Richard Guille. They were both 19 years old; Elizabeth died at the age of 99.
T.F. Priaulx’s article mentions that John Harvey took up merchant shipping and privateering with the Guille family of St George, whether before or after his marriage is not clear; there is no evidence of this so far found, but the Harveys certainly acquired a great deal of property through the years. It is possible that advantageous marriages brought the wealth, as John and Elizabeth’s son, also called John (1793-1865), married Anna Sophia Grut (1802-1844), daughter of Peter Grut (1771-1855) and Anne Collings. Winifred Harvey was their grand-daughter.
John and Anne-Sophia's son Thomas is well documented. He lived in Guernsey, serving as a member of the militia and marrying Jane Payn of Jersey, daughter of Jurat Francis Payn. He then became a merchant in Leeds, from where he travelled on a ship called The New World in 1849 to Racine County, Wisconsin and set up a planing mill. His son William founded the Harvey Spring Company in Racine. The Harvey papers in the Priaulx Library contain warm correspondence with this branch of the family continuing into the 20th century.
John and Elizabeth’s first child, however, was a daughter, Margaret Anne, born in the Pollet in 1792. She survived three days of concussion after falling over the banister and hitting her head on a flagged floor as a small child to live to the age of 111, her life spanning three centuries (she died in 1903). She became famous as Mrs Neve of Rouge Huis, having married John Neve, a man of substance from Tenterden in Kent. The National Trust of Guernsey have in their possession a quilt that belonged to Mrs Neve that dates from this period. They lived in Kent for 25 years; childless, following her husband’s death, she returned to Guernsey to live with her mother in the beautiful family farmhouse in St Peter Port known as Rouge Huis. On the Town Map of 18425, the house belongs to Jean Harvey and is called simply "Chaumière". A note amongst the family papers tells us that it was bought from the de Jersey family in 1808, and that a watercolour of it was painted by the well-known Guernsey artist Paul Jacob Naftel in 1869. It has been, alas, impossible to trace the painting, but a photograph of the house can be seen here.
ODE A MADAME NEVE
De Rouge Huis, Guernesey.
Sur le 100eme Anniversaire de sa Naissance,
Le 18 Mai, 1892
“Je te verrai sans ombre,
O vérité Céleste!
Tu te caches de nous,
Dans nos jours de sommeil
Cette vie est un triste songe,
La mort est un reveil!” Voltaire.
Salut! Reine par âge,
De l’Archipel Normand;
Grace à ton Bocage,
A ton climat charmant!
Vis, vis encore un lustre,
Dans ton Huis – l’Oasis,
D’une famille illustre,
Pres d’un Mont bien assis!
Ton Dieu! Ce Dieu suprème,
Exaucéra nos voeux;
Il t’ouvrira lui-même,
Le Portail de ces Cieux!
Amen, oui, oui, Amen!
Amen!
The Priaulx Library collection includes many travel journals, including Mrs Neve’s honeymoon diaries, which describe the places she visited, including the battlefield of Waterloo, 8 years after the conflict. As she passed 100, her fame began to grow; international newspapers published articles about her on several occasions, including the New York Times. There is correspondence between the Royal Household and the Harvey family on the subject of Mrs Neve:
The Honourable Charlotte Knollys
Marlborough House
Rouge Huis Guernsey 6th July 1901
Dear Madam
We are very sensible of the honor Her Majesty the Queen has done Mrs Neve, in permitting a telegram of congratulation to be sent for her birthday. She entered her 110th year on 18th May last. But we are deeply concerned that Her Majesty should have been troubled by a stranger, who did not even know Mrs Neve’s name.
We replied by telegram yesterday to “Lines, Yoxford”, – in the belief that we were doing so to an agent of “The Queen” newspaper, - being misled by a very inaccurate telegram. The newspaper cutting from “The News” enclosed in a letter from the Revd M. D. Lines, today, is altogether inaccurate.
Mrs Neve has now no memory. She had not the honor of having received a message from Queen Victoria on any birthday. She still enjoys her health, and often looks gratefully at the photograph near her armchair, sent her on 4th May 1896, through the Revd Percy de Putron, West Newton Parsonage, by the Queen; signed by herself expressly for the Old Lady.
Again entreating you to express the concern of Mrs Neve’s family, for this intrusion upon Her Most Gracious Majesty, and thanking Her for Her continued kindness
I am Dear Madam
Yours faithfully
Louisa M Harvey
Enclosed aunt’s last photo, and autograph, also one of her last birthday return thanks cards.
In reply:
Marlborough House
Pall Mall, S.W.
12th July 1901
Dear Madam
I submitted you letter to the Queen; and I am now commanded by Her Majesty to thank you very much for it: and also for the photograph of Mrs Neve, which you so kindly forwarded with the same, for Her acceptance.
I am indeed sorry that the Queen should have been misinformed about Mrs Neve, and I am much obliged to you
The Hon Charlotte Knollys
HMY Victoria & Albert
Cowes
Rouge Huis, Guernsey
July 17th 1902
Dear Madam
Mrs Neve’s photograph, taken on Monday – namely two months after entering her 111th year – has come out so well that we are venturing to send you a copy for our most glorious Queen;
With most sincere wishes for the King’s complete restoration to health, from His Majesty’s Oldest Subject and her family.
I am dear Madam Faithfully yours
Louisa M. Harvey.
The Priaulx Library has cuttings kept by the family that show how Mrs Neve became famous enough to generate her own mythology, newspapers from Chicago and Toronto claiming that Queen Victoria always sent her a birthday card (negated by the above correspondence) and that the Queen even had a portrait of her hanging at Osborne House.
²Winifred B. Harvey, The Battle of Newlands, The Wartime Diaires of Winfred Harvey, ed. Rosemary Booth, The Guernsey Press Ltd, 1995
²Winifred B. Harvey, The Battle of Newlands, The Wartime Diaires of Winfred Harvey, ed. Rosemary Booth, The Guernsey Press Ltd, 1995
³Rev. Daniel Lysons, Samuel Lysons, Magna Britannia, vol. 3 (Cornwall), General History: Extinct Gentry Families, pp. CXVIII-CLXXIV, London: printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1806-22
4Priaulx, T. F., The Review of the Guernsey Society, The Old Lady of Rouge Huis, 28 (1), Spring 1982, p. 11
5Map of St Peter Port, 1842, The Priaulx Library
6Le Baillage, 13.08.1892. John Sullivan is sometimes referred to as Jersey's William McGonagall
see also on Mrs Neve:
Glen Balfour-Paul, Bagpipes in Babylon, London, I.B. Tauris, 2005 (by Mrs Neve's great-nephew)
Back to TopOld Court
A Case Study
Research into the Parker family of St. Peter Port led to an interesting line of enquiry into the history of their house – Old Court.
The Parker family are described as living in “Old Court” in the 1851 census, but the researcher was unable to tell the client where it was, or anything about it – no-one on the staff had ever heard of it before.
A search of the Priaulx Library’s photographs of St. Peter Port discovered the following photograph:
“Old Court House, demolished 1873”. Which explains why no-one had heard of it! But where exactly was it, and why was it demolished? The proximity of Elizabeth College is a huge clue to the location, but camera angles can be deceptive, so one of the library assistants, armed the library digital camera, went off to see if he could get a similar shot. The results are below:
Major-General J. Gaspard Le Marchant
J. Gaspard Le Marchant was born into one of the most influential and possibly the wealthiest family in Guernsey. His was one of the most illustrious careers in the history of the the British Army, in which he single-mindedly founding the Royal Military College and revolutionised the training of officers. Highly esteemed by Wellington, he died a glorious if unnecessary death in 1812 at the Battle of Salamanca, following which a monument to him was erected in St Paul's Cathedral at public expense.
John Gaspard Le Marchant was born on 9 February, 1766, in Amiens, France, at the family home of his maternal grandfather, Count Heinrich Justus Hirzel de St Gratien. The Count’s family were Protestant, originating in Switzerland, and acquired the French element of their title through marriage. He himself was a distinguished officer in the French army and John Gaspard received the name of one of his ancestors, the Huguenot commander Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, which he seems to have used as his chosen name.
Gaspard’s father was John Le Marchant, son of the Lieutenant-Bailiff of Guernsey. His father had been one of the first Guernseymen to hold a commission in the army. His mother, [Marie] Catherine Hirzel, was fairly well-off and they had houses in Bath, Guernsey, and at 10, Hanover Square in London; this last had been left to her by her aunt, Margaret Hirzel, who, as the wife of Thomas Le Marchant, had been the first to marry into the Le Marchant family. Gaspard had a younger brother, James, who unfortunately did not turn out quite as well. Of Gaspard’s school career in Exeter, his headmaster would only say that he could not remember a greater dunce. He was then tutored at home until at sixteen he became determined to join the army, ending up in the 1st Regiment of Foot in Gibraltar, where there was little to do.
He became well-known for his hot temper, at the same time developing a real talent for watercolour painting. He caught yellow fever and was sent to convalesce in Guernsey, where he met Mary Carey, daughter of Jean Carey of La Bigoterie in St Peter Port, a jurat and landowner.
R. H. Thoumine in his definitive biography¹ quotes a little poem written by one of their acquaintances: 
Mary Carey’s a Heart’s Ease, and long may her swain
Live content with his choice nor have cause to complain.
Gas. Le Marchant’s the Thorn whose flower is such
That tho’ pleasing to view is dangerous to touch.
Sir George Yonge, the Secretary at War, showed Gaspard’s watercolours to the King, who was extremely impressed and from that moment on Le Marchant never looked back, Yonge helping him wherever he could. He married Mary Carey in 1789 and in 1791 their first child, Carey, was born. He went on to have ten children, but sadly Mary died in 1811 at their house in High Wycombe, having given birth to the last of them.
From these beginnings, Gaspard Le Marchant went on to pursue one of the most illustrious careers in the history of the the British Army, founding the Royal Military College and revolutionising the training of officers; he died a glorious if unnecessary death in 1812 at the Battle of Salamanca, following which a monument to him was erected in St Paul's Cathedral at public expense. The Gazette de Guernesey of 29 August 1812 reported thus on its front page:
Le Général Le Marchant, dont nous avons annoncé la mort la semaine dernier, étoit natif de cette île; il étoit un des fondateurs du Collège Royal Militaire, de Wycombe, et en a été le Gouverneur jusqu'à son départ pour le Portugal, il y a environ un an. Son épouse, Dlle. Carey, fille du feu Jean Carey, éc. de la Grand'rue, de cette ville, mourut en couche quelques semaines après son départ, et laissa neuf orphelins, avec un propriété peu considérable. L'aîné a environ 17 ans, il étoit l'aide-du-camp de son père lorsqu'il fut tué. Le général Le Marchant étoit universellement réputé pour un officier distingué, ayant dévoué tout son temps à la pratique de sa profession.
As mentioned above, his son Carey took part in the battle with him. Carey was born in Guernsey at La Bigoterie in Berthelot Street (see picture). Having received a classical education at Eton, he attended the royal military college, where he obtained the highest testimonial awarded to students. He undertook a Grand Tour with an Austrian officer, Count Ludolf, son of the Neapolitan Ambassador (during which they stayed with Lady Esther Stanhope, at her Turkish villa) and joined the First Foot, being, to his great delight, attached to his father's staff as aide-de-camp, and receiving many commendations for his bravery and enthusiasm. After Salamanca he showed exemplary courage at the Battle of Vittoria and in the Pyrenees, and, as the war was coming to an end, at the siege of San Sebastian. But he received a bullet wound to his instep at the Battle of the Nive, on 13th December, 1813, in an attempt to rally a regiment which had fallen into confusion.
The doctor at St. Jean de Luz gave him a hopeful prognosis, but despite having graduated to crutches, he died of gangrene poisoning at the age of 23 on 12 March, 1814, and was buried in the ramparts of the fortress.
Few young men have left a more enviable reputation. His courteous and prepossessing deportment was in unison with the excellence of his heart. Neither the elegance of his person, his accomplishments, nor his success in his profession could alter the simplicity of his character. He was truly mourned by those with whom he served, and in his own family, in which he had sought to supply a father's place, his loss was irreparable.
The Priaulx Library has an affectionate letter from him to his sister Kate, written from Castello Branco.
At the death of their mother, the other Le Marchant children – five girls and three boys, the eldest, Denis, sixteen - were left alone in their house at High Wycombe. However, their mother’s brother, Colonel Tom Carey, did not want Gaspard’s career to suffer, so he had proposed a solution: the three eldest would finish their education in England and the other five, Mary, aged 13, Caroline, aged 11, Helen, 8, Anna Maria, 7, and the baby boy, Thomas, were to be taken in by their mother’s sister, Sophy, wife of Peter Mourant, of Candie, who had no children of her own. The Le Marchant family had always returned to Guernsey for holidays twice a year, staying at La Bigoterie or at Candie House – now home to the Priaulx Library. When their father died, they were truly orphaned; The Duke of Norfolk brought this to the attention of the House of Lords, and they were granted an annual pension of £1200.
Denis, born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 3 July 1795, attended Eton and Trinity, Cambridge. He was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1823. When his old college friend, William Lord Brougham, became Lord Chancellor in 1830, he appointed Le Marchant to be his Principal Secretary. After various other appointments he was made a baronet by Lord Melbourne in 1841. He entered the House of Commons as M.P. for Worcester, 8 July 1846, but retired in the following year. In 1850 he was appointed Chief Clerk to the House of Commons, retiring with the thanks of the House in 1871. He died on 30 October 1874 in London. He published privately in 1841 a memoir of his father, and in 1845 edited Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George III. He bought Chobham Place, in Surrey, where, although it was not his residence, he created a well-known woodland garden. He married [Sarah] Eliza Smith.4
John-Gaspard, who also went by the name Gaspard as an adult, born in 1803, was a career soldier who never quite matched up to his father. In all he spent £10,000 to purchase commissions and was one of the youngest officers in the British army to command a regiment. In 1852 he was appointed Governor of Nova Scotia, where he was instrumental in founding the railway, donating the land known as Governor’s Farm at Richmond as the site of the terminus; one of the first locomotives on the line was named in his honour. He left Nova Scotia in 1859. He had also been Governor of Newfoundland at a time of political upheaval – a great fire, potato famine, tax rebellions and liberal agitation. He went on to be Governor of Malta and commander-in-chief of Madras. He married Margaret Anne Taylor in 1839 and had several children5. A watercolourist like his father, painting well-known views of Bermuda in particular, he died in London in 1874.
The Lieutenant-Governor [of Nova Scotia], Sir J. Gaspard le Marchant, is said to be a severe disciplinarian. He served in the wars of the Peninsula, and is now being rewarded for his distinguished services as Governor of this Province. He reviews his troops twice a week upon the Common, and is very strict. The evolutions of the rank and file are the most perfect exhibitions of the kind I have ever witnessed. During one of these reviews I took occasion to remark to a citizen that they were almost equal to the Seventh Regiment of New York. The bystanders laughed incredulously. The bands are as perfect 320 in movement as the troops. The whole affair passes off literally like clock-work, a pendulum being kept in sight of the reviewing officers, by which to measure the music of the bands, and step of the soldiers. Each review concludes with a presentation of the royal standard — the identical colours which were first unfurled upon the Redan by this regiment at the fall of Sebastopol. The ceremony is impressive, an almost superstitious reverence being paid to the triumphant bunting. The review ended, the band remains for a half hour to play for the entertainment of the citizens, who generally attend in large numbers. And another less than complementary mention: Again: if you are still strong in limb, and ready for a longer walk, which I, leaning upon my staff, am not, we will visit the encampment of Point Pleasant. The Seventy-sixth Regiment has pitched its tents here among the evergreens. Yonder you see the soldiers, looking like masses of red fruit amidst the spicy verdure of the spruces. Row upon row of tents, and file upon file of men standing at ease, each one before his knapsack, his little leather household, with its shoes, socks, shirts, brushes, razors, and other furniture open for inspection. And there is Sir John Gaspard le Marchant, with a brilliant staff, engaged in the pleasant duty of picking a personal quarrel with each medal-decorated hero, and marking down every hole in his socks, and every gap in his comb, for the honor of the service.³
The Priaulx Library has some of the letters that his father, Major-General Le Marchant, wrote from Spain to his daughter, Katherine (1796-1881), during the Peninsular War. Her grandaughter says of her in a letter that she was like a mother to the younger children. She went on to marry a parson, Basil Fanshawe6, and lived in Essex. Gaspard took great care over her education at Mrs de Minibus’ establishment, especially her musical education, and the end of his last letter to her, written on 5 July 1812, about two weeks before his death at Salamanca, reads thus:
Beauty, education and money, are separately capable of obtaining an advantageous marriage. As you have not the money, nor the beauty, your whole reliance is on an excellent education. I have said all this before, but I am not mindful of the trouble that I take to render you, my dear Katherine, everything that is perfect.
God bless you, my dear girl. I often think of you in my busiest moments. Looking forward to the pleasures of our meeting. Believing me the ever most affectionate father J G Le Marchant.
Guernsey, and this family in particular, has a long and honourable history of service. As just one example, Gaspard’s great-grandson, Captain Gaspard de Coligny Le Marchant of the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, was killed in action at Boschbult, Kleinhardt's River, March 31st, 1902, during the Boer War. Born in Guernsey in 1879 and educated at Elizabeth College, he was the only son of Seymour Le Marchant (son of Lieut.-Gen. John Gaspard). He went to South Africa from Malta with the Mounted Infantry in December of 1901, and was severely wounded at Klip River, on February 12th 1902. He was sent to Elandsfontein Hospital, and at his urgent request was allowed on March 24th to return to duty, only to die seven days later. A biography and photograph of another military member of the family, Gaspard Le Marchant Tupper of the Royal Artillery (born in Guernsey and educated at Elizabeth College, the son of Gaspard’s daughter Anna Maria), may be found here. He was also a watercolorist who is known for his views of such places as Bermuda, the Crimea, and Puerto Rico; the Library has photographs of him and his brothers, who were also in the army, one of whom appears to have exhibited at the Royal Academy.
If you would like further information please contact a librarian.
¹Thoumine, R. H., Scientific Soldier, A Life of General Le Marchant, OUP, London, 1968, p. 8
²Duncan, Jonathan, The history of Guernsey; with occasional notices of Jersey, Alderney, and Sark, and biographical sketches (1841), Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, pp. 610-11.
³Undated letter from the New York Times; excerpts from Acadia; or a Month with the Blue Noses, by Frederic S. Cozzens; Derby & Jackson, New York, 1859, which refers to him several times. Although a reformer at heart like his father, his behaviour in Canada became controversial when, following orders, he tried to recruit US soldiers from over the border.
4There is more information about Eliza Smith and her family here. Denis' nephew Gaspard Le Marchant Tupper married a younger member of the same family.
5Emily Idonea Sophia Le Marchant was the daughter of Lieutenant-General Sir John Gaspard Le Marchant. She married William Romilly, 2nd Baron Romilly, son of Sir John Romilly, 1st Baron Romilly and Caroline Charlotte Otter, on 9 February 1865. She gave birth to a son, John Gaspard le Marchant Romilly, 3rd Baron Romilly (1.2.1866-23.6.1905), but died shortly after. In 1872 William remarried, to Emily's cousin, Katherine Le Marchant's granddaughter Helen Denison.
6More about the Rev. Fanshawe here. Their son Thomas married Emily Gosselin of Kent, and two of their children went on to marry back into the Carey family of Guernsey.
Other items of interest:
Le Marchant, Denis, Memoirs of the Late Major General Le Marchant, Spellmount Ltd, Staplehurst, 1997 (reprint) J. Gaspard Le Marchant and others, Peninsular Letters: Letters to Katherine Le Marchant, 1811-1812, original documents, Priaulx Library. Most of Gaspard's letters are kept at Sandhurst. http://www.fortified-places.com/socoa.html The fort at St-Jean-de-Luz.
A snippet about Gaspard Le Marchant Tupper: http://wordpress.com/tag/gaspard-lemarchant-tupper/ . The Priaulx Library holds another original copy of his photograph.
The Library recently received a very kind donation of a catalogue of his Bermuda watercolours.
Information and illustration of a 1838 licence from Queen Victoria issued to Lt-Gen. J. Gaspard Le Marchant
The Métivier Family
The Métivier family in Guernsey are remembered chiefly for the literary works of one of their members, George Métivier (1797-1881), philologist and poet. He wrote romantic rural poetry in Guernsey patois (he was called Guernsey’s Robert Burns by no less than Victor Hugo himself), and an important dictionary of the Guernsey French language, with which he was aided by Hugo (although not all French critics were so kind).
The family has an interesting history, full of ups and downs. We know rather more about them than is usual because the Priaulx Library has a large number of fascinating personal and business letters and documents that were left to a former Bailiff and friend of the family, Sir Edgar MacCulloch, by the advocate and Jurat William-Pierre Métivier. They cover the end of the 18th and the first 60 or so years of the 19th centuries and give a great deal of information about this family and many other Guernsey matters.
The Métivier family was part of the Huguenot nobility, being descended from a Pierre who fought for the King of Navarre in 1587, and who was ennobled by Henry IV of France after the battle of Coutras. His great-grandson, Jean de Bonnefine (b. 1662) was the ancestor of the Guernsey branch of the Métiviers.
Jean Métivier, the first of the family to reside in Guernsey, was a Huguenot refugee. He was a pastor in Dordrecht before taking up the position of curate at the Câtel church under another Huguenot refugee, the Reverend Isaac Babault. Isaac died in 1752; Jean married his daughter Susanna in the same year and took on his post as Rector of Câtel Church. In 1755 he married Elizabeth Carey, daughter of Nathaniel Carey and Marie Gosselin of St Peter Port. In 1757 their son Jean-Carey was born, but Jean himself died the next year.
Jean-Carey went on to become an advocate and eventually Comptrolleur. He married Esther Guille, a member of the grand Guille family that lived at the St George estate in the Câtel. In 1788 their first son, John, was born; he was followed by George (the poet) in 1790, William-Peter (Guillaume-Pierre) in 1791, Charles in 1793, and Henri-Ireland in 1795. Henri-Ireland died the next year, then Jean-Carey himself died in 1796, aged only 38. His last son, Carey Henry, was born in 1797. When George was 13, he went to live at St George with his mother and her family, and there he learnt to speak Guernsey patois.
Some idea of St. George at that time can be gleaned from this quotation from Cecil Smith's 1879 Birds of Guernsey and the Neighbouring Islands*:
Our venerable national poet, Mr. George Métivier, has many allusions to the Oriole in his early effusions, whether written in English, French, or our vernacular dialect. It seems to have been an occasional visitor at St. George's; but in Mr. Métivier's early days the island was far more wooded than it is at present, and it is possible that the wholesale destruction of hedgerow elms and the grubbing-up of so many orchards in order to employ the ground more profitably in the culture of early potatoes and broccoli, by which the island has lost much of its picturesque beauty, may have had the effect of deterring some of the occasional visitors from alighting here in their periodical migrations." Signed "Tereus."
A short time after the appearance of this letter in the 'Star' on the 16th of May, 1878, Mr. MacCulloch himself wrote to me on the subject and said:--"I had yesterday a very satisfactory interview with Mr. George Métivier. He is now in his 88th or 89th year. He told me he was about thirteen when he went to reside with his relations, the Guilles, at St. George. There was then a great deal of old timber about the place and a long avenue of oaks, besides three large cherry orchards. One day he was startled by the sight of a male Oriole. He had never seen the bird before. Whether it was that one that was killed or another in a subsequent year I don't know, but he declares that for several years afterwards they were seen in the oak trees and among the cherries, and that he has not the least doubt but that they bred there. One day an old French gentleman of the name of De l'Huiller from the South of France, an emigrant, noticed the birds and made the remark--'Ah! vous avez des loriots ici; nous en avons beaucoup chez nous, ils sont grands gobeurs de cerises.' It would appear from this that cherries are a favourite food with this bird, and the presence of cherry orchards would account for their settling down at St. George. I believe they are said to be very shy, and the absence of wood would account for their not being seen in the present day.
George was sent to school in England, purportedly to learn English. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University but gave it up and returned to Guernsey in 1830, publishing his first book of poems, Rimes Guernesiaises, in 1831.
His brother, William-P., who is the author or recipient of the majority of the Library's letters, married Julia Priaulx of Montville House, Les Vardes, in 1830 and went to live at Montville, which was owned by his in-laws.
The Priaulx family had extensive business interests and although William-P. was an advocate by profession and a Jurat for 36 years, he seems to have spent a good deal of time travelling to the various parts of Europe, particularly Spain, where his merchant trading company, Métivier, Betts, and Carey (his grandmother was Elizabeth Carey), were based, and in correspondence with his partners and employees. His obituary in 1883 says: “Previous to his being elected a Jurat Mr Métivier was occupied in mercantile pursuits abroad, and on his return to Guernsey devoted himself to the public service. For many years [he] was the President of the States Education Committee, during which time he did active work, and aided in paving the way for the comprehensive scheme which is just about to be carried out in its entirety. [He] married a Miss Priaulx, of Montville, who predeceased him, leaving no children. For many years he has lived at Montville, with his brother-in-law, Colonel James Priaulx.” James Priaulx died only a few days after William, aged 87.
Charles, the fourth brother, based himself in Bristol as a merchant trader and seems to have also been a partner in the family company. Jean Métivier, the eldest brother, and Carey-Henry, the youngest, however, led far from straightforward lives. Jean trained as an advocate but is to be found in his thirties in Bristol, together with his mother and Carey-Henry. In 1830 he and his youngest brother took out a lease on a Georgian house in Wotton-under-Edge, in Gloucestershire, which was the centre of a historically thriving woollen trade. Carey-Henry straightaway got himself elected Mayor of Wotton (1830-32).
Wortley House, which is still standing, came with the lease of Monks Mills, the biggest mill complex in the area, and they took up the profession of clothier. Letters of the period and later, however, point to both brothers being less than frugal, and Carey-Henry in particular being something of a profligate. This was unfortunate, as at the very time they took on the lease of Wortley House and Mills, the woollen trade in Gloucestershire collapsed through a combination of bad management and competition, leading in 1834 to their bankruptcy, as well as that of several other prominent clothiers.
The Priaulx Library has a catalogue from the sale of the contents of the house, which someone (probably one of the family) has carefully annotated with the prices fetched on the day, as well as a more extensive handwritten list with the original prices of the goods and notes that some of the furniture belonging to Mrs Métivier had been bought back for her. Poor Esther Métivier lived long enough to see her son Carey-Henry go bankrupt again in 1838; she died in 1839 and a memorial plaque to her is to be found in the church at Wotton.
There are many letters in the collection in which Jean Métivier asks his brothers for money and clothes, which they give him, although remonstrating with him about his spending habits. He spent time in Spain working for his brother William-P. before returning to Guernsey and taking up residence in St Martin’s. He died in 1869 and was buried in St Martin’s churchyard; when George died he was buried with him. John, like his brother George, was something of an antiquarian, and in the 1850s spent a great deal of time in Normandy researching charters with links to Guernsey, which he copied and eventually had printed, exhibiting them to the Society of Antiquaries in 1856. One set of the thirty volumes were given to the Bodleian Library and the other left to Sir Edgar MacCulloch, who passed them on to the States of Guernsey.
Carey-Henry remained in Wotton until 1839, organising the Bible Society. He had married Mary Ann Cooper in 1821. In 1853 he was living at Saltford between Bristol and Bath, complaining that he has only £30 pa to live on and trying to borrow £31-8-6 from his brothers; later, in 1855, he writes of his shame at having had to raise money by “unlawful means” and having left the debt behind. He accuses his brother Charles of slander. Amongst his four children, his son John Carey is often mentioned in the letters, firstly when a young boy, when he seems to have been a favourite, and later as a ne’er-do-well, about whom Uncles John, William-P., and Charles were constantly fretting. Charles seems to have supported him financially, but to have received very little gratitude in return. Here is a letter from John in Guernsey to John Carey, dated 8 April 1845:
My dear John,
Last Post brought me a letter from your uncle Charles the contents of which I need hardly tell you have grieved both your uncle William and myself not so much on account of your indiscretions as for the course of duplicity you have so recklessly pursued.
The very marked manner in which whilst you were here you avoided as much as lay in your power the company of your friends and especially your conduct on the day you left when instead of spending with us the short time you had to stay you were loitering about town for no other purpose than to keep away had convinced me that all was not right believe me such manoeuvres deceive no-one – Your conduct has I am sorry to say lost you the confidence of your uncle Charles – and I entreat you seriously to consider what will be your situation should you oblige him by persisting in the same course to withdraw his support from you misery and starvation will then be your question.
...
I trust the extent of your indiscretions is now known to us but should it unfortunately be otherwise conceal nothing from your Uncle Charles – sooner or later everything must be known and if after the warning you have had you should have persisted in your past course of deception your friends will be compelled to cut you off entirely.
I write - more in sorrow than in anger - It now rests with you however to determine how long I shall continue to subscribe myself Your affectionate uncle”
Whilst in Guernsey, the Métiviers enjoyed the friendship and support of some of the most prominent families: the Careys, the Guilles, the Priaulx, the de Carterets and the Andros family, for example, to whom they were often connected by marriage and who provided many of the five sons' godparents. They also seem to have retained connections with France and another branch of the family in England. Their fortunes when they had to strike out for themselves, however, were more mixed, and thanks to the fascinating collection of documents held in the Priaulx Library, we can follow their deeds - and misdeeds - in detail for ourselves.
Should you wish to find out more about this family or view any of the material, please contact a librarian.
*Birds of Guernsey and the Neighbouring Islands, Alderney, Sark, Jethou, Herm; Being a small contribution to the Ornithology of the Channel Islands, by Cecil Smith, F.Z.S., Member of the British Ornithologist’s Union, London: R.H. Porter, 6, Tenterden Street, Hanover Square, 1879.
The English Butcher and the Brewer
John Lewis Peyton (1824-1896) was an author and historian from Virginia, a descendant of a 17th-century governor of Jersey. He came to London as representative of the Southern Confederacy in 1861 and there befriended Osmond Priaulx, the founder of the Priaulx Library. They were both members of the Reform Club and Peyton visited Guernsey several times, eventually settling here until 1876. Amongst his works he published Rambling Reminiscences (1888), a description of a tour around Britain, which ends with an in-depth examination of Guernsey and its history. He has a great deal in particular to say about social divisions in the island.
The higher class is known as Sixtys, who have for ages held the first position and enjoyed the best of everything in the island. They are called by the peasantry the people of the first fashion and are, in fact, the old manor families. Their society comprises nearly all that is brilliant in art and intellect in the island. .. Some of the Sixtys trace back their origin more than a thousand years, and are accused of inventing genealogies to establish their pretensions. They enjoy no peculiar privileges or precedency, but their education gives them a claim to the first places and public opinion facilitates their attaining them .. during the Middle Ages, these Seigneurs exercised a complete mastery over their villeins, making them perform all kinds of menial offices in time of peace and follow their persons in time of war. .. As this was the character, position and former state and condition of the Sixtys, it is hardly surprising that they still feel a little pride of position. The Sixtys affect French manners, as well as the French language (a society called the Society de Guernesiais has been formed with the special object of preserving the French-Guernsey language) and resemble their archetypes in affability, easy elegance and alertness. .. Although very exclusive, within recent years many have crept into their social circle, who ought not to be there – these for the most part have been disreputable or what are styled "shady” English.
The second rank are known as the Fortys and are .. sturdy men of affairs, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, care little for learning or the arts, and nothing whatever for the gaieties and frivolities of the fashionable world. .. Whatever trade and commerce Guernsey can boast of, is in their hands; if they do not originate they carry out all public improvements, rear blooded stock, apply science to agriculture – they are the men of today – the Sixtys of yesterday. The latter will not admit them to social intercourse, however agreeable they may be in manners, in social talents and elevated in character.
On 6th April, 1801, a violent quarrel took place between Thomas Bishop and Frederick Mansell. The latter was in his mid-twenties (1775-1847), as probably was the other, and both well-off. The Priaulx Library has in its collection of documents letters and affidavits which chronicle what happened on that night and how the argument might have led to a duel, had the one party not been socially advantaged. In fact, this reflects the clannish split between the most powerful families and the rest of the population that was described above; it is evident from the testimonies of the two young men that there was little love lost between them. It may be that much of the antagonism on Bishop’s side was due to the frustrated awareness of Mansell’s social, but not necessarily moral, superiority, and that Frederick Mansell’s behaviour towards Thomas Bishop was due to his arrogance manifesting itself while he was drunk.
On the 7th April Thomas Bishop “posted” Frederick Mansell, that is, he stuck up copies of the following handwritten placard (see picture above) in those places in St Peter Port where persons of Mr Mansell’s social standing were likely to see them:
I hereby post Captain Frederick Mansell of the Black Regiment of Militia of this Island for a Poltroon and a Cowardly Assassin for Reason which I pledge myself to give in the Publick Papers -------T Bishop
Guernsey 7th April 1801
"Posting" (or "placarding") was the fashionable method of challenging another man to a duel, particularly when that man seemed unlikely to accept a challenge otherwise, but was not generally regarded as gentlemanly behaviour. “Poltroon” and “Cowardly Assassin” were formulaic and occur in many similar postings in Britain and America (where posting seems to have been a popular pastime). Thomas Bishop had first sent Frederick Mansell a letter on that day, which Mansell had shown around; in consequence of this, Bishop “posted” him around Town, and sent another letter. We have five copies of the “placard”, still showing the glue marks from where they were posted up. The text of the letters, which we do not have, he later published in the following privately printed pamphlet, in which he gives a literal blow-by-blow account of their quarrel:
TO THE PUBLIC
Having pledged myself to give, to the Public at large, my reasons for having posted Mr. Frederick Mansell, of this Island, as a Poltroon, and Cowardly Assassin; and finding some difficulty would occur in getting them inserted in the Public News-papers, I have taken this method of fulfilling that engagement:
On Monday 6th instant, being at the Rohais, (in the large Public Room, adjoining the house occupied by MR WARD,) about 9 o’clock in the evening, Mr. Frederick Mansell, Mr. John Priaulx, and Mr Peter Maingy, jun. entered the said Room, in their Militia Regimentals and Sashes. – Mr Mansell immediately began clapping his hands so loud, as to entirely drown the noise of a fiddle at that time playing in the Room. – I was then dancing, but in order to avoid a quarrel, would not expostulate with Mr. Mansell. – He then posted himself between the Lady I was dancing with and me; and addressed himself to her in some insulting language, which I did not perfectly hear. – The confusion and fright into which she was thrown by his address, convinced me however of its impropriety; and, I calmly desired him to desist in the following terms: “Mr. Mansell, you see how you distress this Lady,” “you have no acquaintance whatever with her, -- I beg you will leave her, there are others in the Room who will perhaps be more pleased with your company.” This I repeated at least six or seven times; but finding it of no avail: I said, “Mansell, this Lady is now under my protection,” “while she is so, she has a right to expect it:” “and, by God, I will protect her, whatever may be the consequence.” == Mr. Mansell then burst out into invectives against me, among which the following caught my ear. – “You Bishop,”—“You English Butcher,” – “I will mark you – I will mark you, --I will mark you.” I replied, “as to Butcher, Mansell, you and I, are there nearly on a level: “You are just as much a Brewer, as I am Butcher; “and if you mark me, you will find me much at your service.” Mr. Mansell then called me Scoundrel, and attempted to strike me, but was withheld. I was likewise prevented from approaching him, by the bye-standers. He attempted repeatedly to get at me, in order “to mark me”, “do for me”, and “have at me,” as he expressed himself; but the People in the Room prevented his approaching me. – Mr Priaulx and Mr Mansell then fetched their broad swords from the house where they had left them, and immediately drew and cut about them in all directions. – I was forced out of the Room. In regaining my liberty, and re-entering it; Mansell, looked furiously towards me, and called out, “Let me come at him, -- I will do for him, --Damn him, --a Butcher, -- I will do for him.” I folded my arms, walked up to him, and said, “Here I am, Mansell, -- What will you do.” I was then again forced out of the Room, and on again freeing myself, I flew to the assistance of my friends, and was soon after informed that Mr. S. Goodwin had received a wound in the arm. I now found that these Gallant Soldiers had nearly cleared the Room, and saw myself beset in a Corner, by Priaulx and Mansell; -- their swords flew about within an inch of my head several times. I now thought it high time to preserve myself; and as I saw my friends had nearly all been obliged to retire. I opened the Sash, sprang out into the Green, and joined my friends, who were now assisting Mr Goodwin.—When I saw the Gash I was so exasperated, as almost to be bereft of reason, and had I succeeded in an attempt to gain Mr. Maingy’s sword, I should probably have effectually revenged the injury.
I now determined to call on Mr. Mansell for satisfaction, and in consequence wrote him the first of the following Letters; but as from my knowledge of some former affairs of honor, in which Mr. Mansell was implicated, I entertained some doubts of his sober courage. – I prepared the second Letter, which I sent him, on hearing he had exposed the first to Public view. I then posted him at the Public places in the terms before mentioned; and now leave it to the World to judge to whom the appellation of Gentleman best belongs.
Mr Mansell has thought proper to arrest me in £500 Bail, for my appearance, to answer, having written to, and posted him. – This oblilges me to remark, that Mr. Mansell has confirmed my former opinion of him. – Tho’ he dares not meet me with equal weapons, he will seize every opportunity of attacking where he has an Evident Advantage.
T BISHOP
[The first letter:]
(COPY)
GUERNSEY, 7th April, 1801
“Sir,
“The insults you offered me last evening, need not I suppose be repeated, to convince you, that they were too gross for any man of spirit to bear quietly. I now request, Sir, you will not shelter yourself under any mean evasion; but convince me by an honourable and equal meeting, that you Courage does not depend on the Wine you may have drank, or the Sword you may happen to wear, when you meet with unarmed men. – I shall attend you to-morrow morning at seven o’clock, in the Brickfield, beyond Fort George.
I am &c.,
Capt. Mansell (Signed) “T. BISHOP.”
Mansell shows this around, presumably to mock it; so, still on the seventh, Bishop sends him the following letter and then “posts” him:
GUERSEY, 7th April, 1801
SIR,
“The dastardly injury received last night by Mr. Goodwin in my defence.—The unprovoked insults offered to a Lady, then under my protection; and the mean insinuations you thought proper to use against my Character, lay me under a triple obligation of calling on you for satisfaction. The latter, among which I reckon the Epithet of Butcher applied to my name; could not when I heard you utter them, but force a smile.—To yourself, I have no doubt, but the equality between us is evident: but as in the event of your sheltering yourself under any false pretext:--this Letter must, and shall become public; it may not be improper to state the Points on which I conceive that equality to rest.
The word Gentleman, as I take it, Sir; implies a superiority to the general mass of the World, in Family, Fortune, Education, and Behaviour. Tho I conceive no just respect to be due to Family, yet you cannot claim in this point a superiority:--if we trace back our linage but for thirty years—mine was, I scruple not to say it, far more respectable.
In point of fortune, I allow you to have now the advantage, for which reason it might perhaps be unjust in me to decide what weight ought to be ascribed to this qualification of a Gentleman. As to Education, I think I may safely, as well as in relation to that received in my youth, as to subsequent improvement, --claim the superiority, and to this point, and to this only, will I allow any weight.—Mine has taught me, that retaliation is Justice, it has effaced fear from my bosom, and has determined me in defiance of the dastardly prejudices of the World to assert my rights.
Behaviour now remains alone to be discussed, and on this head your conduct and mine in this affair will give the World an opportunity of Judging.
I have now only to remark, that in future, I shall take care to hold myself prepared to meet the Cowardly assassin as well as the Gentleman.
“I am, Sir,
Yours, &c.
Mr Frederick Mansell (Signed) “T. BISHOP”
P.S. Since the above has been sent ot the Press,--the following circumstances have come to my knowledge.—At the moment I jumped out of the Window (as above related) Mansell made a cut at me and had not his sword been intercepted by the Window-frame, it must have alighted on my back, and, would probably as completely have done for me, as Mr. Mansell could have wished, as it penetrated the wood to a great depth. I also find Messrs. Mansell and Priaulx went to a house, about fifty paces distant, to fetch their swords, and Mr. Mansell declar’d that, could he have been revenged on me he should have been satisfied, I scorn to retaliate Mr. Mansells’s abuse,--‘’tis a meanness far beneath me.
Fredrick Mansell had immediately obtained an order form the Bailiff for Bishop to be charged with libel with menaces in the letters and posting; he seems to have been given bail of £500, but it is not at all clear that any action was in fact taken at that point, rather that he was supposed to answer the charges later in court. Thomas Bishop had apparently on the same day done exactly the same, obtaining an order for Frederick Mansell’s arrest and bail of £300, for which Peter Mourant Jnr stood on the 9th. Thomas Bishop accused Mansell of having grièvement Injurié & Menacé him, and Mansell was expected to answer the charges in Court; Bishop asked for damages in addition. It is impossible to say who approached the Courts first. It seems that the publication of Bishop’s pamphlet on the 15th April finally forced the Court to execute the warrant from the 8th on the 16th. On the 20th April Pierre Simon stood bail for him.
The Library has the documents that were issued by the Bailiff on the 16th and Frederick Mansell’s own deposition, in which he relates his version of events on the night of the 6th April:
Upon the Review at Vazon on Monday 6th Instant, we Dined a number of friends at the Rohais Coffee House, and as we were returning home about 9 O’Clock in the evening we heard music opposite at Mr Ward’s, upon which I proposed to Mr John Priaulx to step in for a few moments. We both went in together, but not until we had made particular enquiry, and had fully ascertain’d it to be a public Inn.
Mr. Thomas Le Marchant and Mr Peter Maingy [Mansell’s brother–in-law], who were also of the party, very soon followed us in to the Room. On entering it, I imediately put aside my Sword with my Light Infantry’s Cap on a small table which stood behind the Door, after which I went up to a Girl who was Dancing with a Mr. Bishop & I addressed her as well as another Girl who stood next to her and with whom I was to have danced the following Dance. Mr. Bishop from motives best known to himself told me to desist speaking to the Lady who was his Partner, but I paid very little attention to what he then said, he kept on repeating those words several times upon which I answered him to this effect “Sir, whilst these ladies are satisfied with my conduct I presume you have no business to interfere.” I thought in giving this explanation, I had condescend’d a great deal and that it would have appeased this Man, but no, he again attacked me, and I heard him distinctly say “Mansell by God you’ll not speak to this Lady or I’ll make you sit down.” This language was to me insupportable, particularly coming from a Man like this Mr Bishop, whose Character and occupation are well known in this Island, consequently had no other alternative left to avenge myself, but by threatening to horsewhip him, which I certainly would have done, if I had not been withheld by those who were present, I called him repeatedly a damn’d Scoundrel, with the addition of “You English Butcher I will mark you”. I attempted several times to collar him, and made use of the Epithet of Butcher very often. At that time all was confusion in the Room, and Mr. John Priaulx as well as myself were assailed by about Twenty or Thirty of Mr. Bishop’s party, who knock’d us down several times, and we found ourselves entirely overpowered by numbers. At this point I received a blow from some one behind me, which brought me to the Ground, and when Mr. John Priaulx perceived that I had been attacked in so unfair manner, he deem’d it prudent in his own defence to draw his Sword, and declared that he would make use of it, if anyone attempted to strike him. The moment I recover’d from the blow I had received, I flew to the place where I had deposited my Sword, which I then drew and brandished it about, but I solemnly aver that Mr Bishop was not then in the Room, in the scuffle Mr Goodwin received a slight cut in the arm and afterwards Mr Priaulx and myself returned to Town.
The above Narration contains facts which I can prove before any Court of Justice from the evidence of some very respectable Persons who were present at the time the affair occurr’d.
Frederick Mansell April 16th 1801
No more material on this subject exists at the Library. Enquiries at the Greffe as to whether the affair ever came to Court drew a blank*, and it is possible it was all settled out of Court. Duels did take place in Guernsey, some with fatal results, and they seem to have occurred most often in this Napoleonic period. The island was on high alert and the garrison from the mainland expanded; soldiers from the army seem to have had little time for members of the Militia, to whom they regarded themselves as superior, and the men of both sides seem to have been spoiling for a fight. William De Vic Tupper, (son of E. Tupper, Esq.), a serial but light-hearted dueller, was mortally wounded in 1798, in a duel in Guernsey, with an officer in the army, who called him a scoundrel for not having taken off his hat during the National Anthem while at the Theatre; Tupper said he was too busy chatting. Major Byng is the best-known Guernsey dueller; there is a stone in Cambridge Park commemorating his death in 1795. A member of the 92nd Regiment of Foot, just reconstituted as the Gordon Highlanders, he claimed not to recognise the band's rendition of the National Anthem after Mess and did not stand up; the Regiment's surgeon challenged him and he was shot through the skull the next day. Edith Carey relates the stories of these and other duels as told to F C Lukis by Anthony Priaulx, Tupper's great friend, in her scrapbook held at the Library. The most (in)famous duel was that between Robert Porret Le Marchant, future Bailiff, and Thomas Saumarez; it was orchestrated by Le Marchant's father, the despotic Bailiff William Le Marchant, and was brilliantly described and analysed by Cecil de Saumarez in the 1965 Transactions.
The son of Thomas Mansell and Martha Price, Mansell was a Captain in the West, or Black, Regiment of the Guernsey Militia. The Mansell family, of which there were several distinct branches all originally from England and of minor nobility, were prominent in the island. Officers in the Militia were always where possible appointed from within the “best” families, as was freely acknowledged in its de facto constitution. In 1801 the Militia were constantly exercising and on guard around the coast, day and night; a prominent position in the Militia was always made much of by the post-holders concerned, and at this period particularly a Militia officer would probably have been very much aware of his own importance. In July 1801, two months after this altercation, Frederick Mansell was promoted to Major¹. In 1804 he married Anne Collings Lukis (1780-1854) and in 1806 bought the Vauxbelets estate from the Rev. Thomas Pottinger, the largest in Guernsey in terms of area. He eventually became a Jurat. Bishop had answered his “Butcher” jibe with one of his own - “as to Butcher, Mansell, you and I, are there nearly on a level: You are just as much a Brewer, as I am Butcher”. The Gazette of 1795 shows that he was right; the lead article of the 27 December 1794 edition relates how the St Peter Port “brewing” (brasserie) of Mr Mansell (in Fountain Street) was completely destroyed by fire. An interesting account in itself, it tells us that the Mansells provided beer for the garrison, which had greatly expanded in numbers in the late 18th century. Mansell died in 1847, aged 73.³
On the subject of the class divide, Peyton goes on to say:
According to ancient custom they were thus ranked: 1st, the Seigneurs, or the nobility; 2nd, the Freemen, or franc tenants; 3rd the Freedmen; 4th the Serfs, and as it was the custom, if not the law, that each person should marry in his own rank, their different orders were long preserved uncontaminated. Within the past century there has been a good deal of marrying between the Sixtys and the Fortys, the wealth of the Fortys constitiuting a very acceptable inducement to the less wealthy of the Sixtys. But the Fortys thus admitted in to the higher class feel their dependence and are often humiliated.
Thomas Bishop married Ann Grut Simon, daughter of Jean Simon, in 1804. In the church records he is described as son of Richard, of St Saviour’s, Southwark, Surrey. Southwark was the second most important borough of London for butchery and provision of meat after Westminster and was home to the Guild of Butchers, and was regarded as somewhat disreputable. Stephen Foote has made a special study of Guernsey butchers, however, and Thomas Bishop is not amongst them; so far no evidence has yet been found that he himself took part in any trade or that he was related to the Bishop family of Jersey, who had settled in Guernsey at about this time and became very well-known and respected for their string of drapery shops. He does, however, seem to have had strong links to the Grut family, who were Huguenots of some wealth and merchant traders of eminence. The Gazette of 1 July 1797 features the following announcement:
Messieurs Grut & Bishop respectfully inform their friends that their Academy at the Carrefour, will open on Monday next, 3rd July.
Thomas Bishop may after all have been a schoolteacher. He later married Elizabeth Grut, daughter of Nicolas, as his second wife in 1817, his first wife’s mother having been Joyce Grut. Church records show the Grut and Simon families had strong social connections and were apparently in business together². Jurat Frederick Mansell’s nephew, Alfred, the son of his brother John, married Elizabeth Grut’s cousin Louisa, daughter of the Reverend Thomas Grut.
.. the Sixtys regard trade as derogatory, or infra dig, and .. no-one engaged in it, is admitted to their society, nor are such persons allowed with their consent to fill offices of dignity or profit. An election for Judge or Jurat occurred while were in the island .. we attended the States of election on the occasion.
Abraham Bishop4 [no relation], a prosperous and wealthy merchant, was nominated for the post. His election was opposed by one of the Sixtys, upon the grounds of Mr Bishop’s connection with trade and his consequent unfitness for the position. This ancient policy on part of the old families, has excluded from the States, in times passed and still does so, many men of character and talents for legislative work. And men have been elected merely because they were descendants of the old Seigneurs, who were hopelessly eccentric, or congenitally stupid. ..The deputy who stood forward to oppose Mr Bishop’s election went on sharply to criticise his presumption in allowing his name to be presented, and this while he admitted Mr B. to be a man of capacity, of fortune and of deep stake in the community. Though this was not denied, the deputy said Mr Bishop’s business pursuits, his want of social standing, and his lack of special legal training, (something by the way which none of the Jurats had except the Bailiff) altogether disqualified him for the office. The member who had adventurously nominated Mr B. feebly essayed to justify his course, as taken in accordance with the liberal tendencies of his age, and in the hope of securing more progressive ideas and efficiency in the States, but his remarks were so badly received that he soon resumed his seat amid the ill suppressed sneers of that haughty aristocracy, which hardly regarded Mr. Bishop as better than a huckster, and, of course, the election went against the Merchant Prince, as Mr Bishop was sometimes styled.
The office of Jurat instead went to a ... Dr Mansell.
* The search was kindly undertaken by Keith Robilliard of the Greffe.
¹ By 1830 he was Colonel of the Regiment. J. Percy Groves tells us in his 1890 book The Royal Guernsey Militia (p. 94) that Mansell wished to resign his command once he had been made a Jurat, and that "the following promotions took place in the West Regiment on Col. Frederick Mansell's appointment to the Invalid Corps :- Lieut.-Col. Peter Mansell, Colonel; Major John Mansell, Lieut.-Col.; Captain Hillary Allaire, major; and Lieutenant St. John Mansell, Captain."
²[Gazette 4 Jan 1806, Pierre Grut comme procureur de M Pierre Simon, de Cork, fait savoir, que la maison du dit Simon, située au bas du Truchot de côté de la mer etc.].
[id. 6 Apr 1796: Joyce Grut, veuve de Jean Simon fait savoir, que son jardin situes proche beauregard, est a louer, pour la St Michel prochaine.]
³ Frederick Mansell is buried in St Andrew's churchyard, with his wife, son, daughters, daughter-in-law, and grandchild. Near his family vault is another tombstone, which reads in English and French: In memory of DANIEL MCDONALD, A Soldier's Orphan. Born deaf and dumb, and who, after an honest and faithful service of thirty-three years in the MANSELL family, died January 30th 1828, In or about the forty-sixth year of his age. This tablet is erected by his last Protector, FREDERICK MANSELL ESQre, VAUXBELETS. A complete transcription of the memorials in St Andrew's churchyard is available at the Library.
4Abraham Bishop was a draper, son of Charles Bishop and Mary de Jersey. Charles and Abraham's father-in-law Henry de Jersey traded as Bishop, de Jersey & Co. from 1804, after they had dissolved a partnership with Philip Tyson Le Gros. They were linen drapers at Carrefour House, High Street, now Lloyd's Bank, from where they also ran the Bank of Guernsey, issuing notes and tokens until 1811, when the business was liquidated. Their letter book is in the Island Archives. Abraham established his business in 1820. His son Julius continued the business at Victoria House, 15-19 High Street and Victoria Street, Alderney, until his retirement in 1919, when the business passed into the hands of Messrs B. B. Creasey and Son.
The Monthly Illustrated Journal, July 1880: The Island has sustained a great loss by the demise of Mr A Bishop ... at his residence, Le Platon, in his 77th year. The deceased had been engaged in business for about sixty years in this island, branches of the establishment being carried on in Alderney and also for some years in Jersey. He had taken a prominent part in public affairs from an early age, being at the time of his death Chairman of the Guernsey Commercial Banking Company, of the Chamber of Commerce, of the Weymouth and Channel Islands Steam Packet Company; member of one of the Cantonal Douzaines, and Elder of St James' Church, besides being on more than one States Committee. He had also been elected member of the Town Douzaine on two separate occasions .. served as Constable and President of the Poor Law Board, and has been a most useful member of the Harbour Committee. he had also been proposed as magistrate, on which occasion he ran a very good second to the late Dr Mansell, on whom the election finally fell. He was at one time a prominent Member of the Wesleyan Connexion ... He had been a most popular Officer in the Militia, having commanded the Town Regiment for many years ...
John Heaume raised Percheron cattle on a farm in Buffalo, Guernsey County, and was also in the tobacco business. He was an active citizen and filled several public offices in Cambridge, the capital of Guernsey County. Rachel died in 1892. In 1894 John returned to Guernsey to visit and died here. He was buried in the Heaume family vault in Candie Cemetery.