3rd November 2015
Guernsey's first Methodist preacher Jean de Queteville writes about his son Jean in his Magasin Méthodiste of 1818, twenty-five years after the little boy's death. The portrait of de Queteville is from Henri de Jersey's Vie du Rév. Jean de Queteville, avec de nombreux extraits de sa correspondance, et un abrégé de la vie de Madame de Queteville, London: J Mason, and Guernsey: Mademoiselle de Queteville, St Jacques, 1847.
26th October 2015
Two interesting judgments from the 1760s. Library Perchard file.
13th October 2015
According to this note, or cédule, Jean de la Mare of Le Hurel in St Saviour's borrowed several lots of money from Jean Le Mesurier de la Fontaine. This note is for a relatively small amount, 5 livres tournois. The note is dated 27 April 1757, and is part of the Le Hurel Collection donated to us by Esther Hatton.
9th October 2015
A printed account of the defendants' response to an appeal to the Privy Council, March 1715, concerning the retrait lignager of a house at the Tourgand. From Petitions and trials, in the Library. For Mr. James de Havilland, Mrs. Rachel Briard, Represented by Mr. Henry de Saumarez, her Son, Defendants. Versus. Mrs. Jacquina de Saumarez, Appellant.
5th October 2015
'Réflexion sage, mais un peu Tardive de Madamoiselle Biard,' by the Reverend Elie du Fresne (b. 1692), from his collected poems, Poésie, written c. 1713-1745. Be prepared for 18th-century attitudes! On the flyleaf of the cover is written, 'These pieces of poetry were copied by her late regretted Father, John de Havilland;' the identity of the Miss de Havilland in question is not known. The illustration is from 'La vieille,' or 'The Old Woman,' a song on just this subject, from Chants et chansons populaires de la France, Paris: Garnier Frères, 1854, in the Library Collection.
28th September 2015
By the writer and prolific journalist, Basil Campbell de Guérin. From The Scots Magazine, XLVIII (5), February 1948, in his Scrapbook H, in the Library. Although this is a fascinating article, the premiss upon which De Guérin wrote it is fundamentally flawed; the 92nd Foot did not become the Gordon Highlanders until 1798. This version of the 92nd Regiment was raised in Ireland by George Hewett on 31 December 1793. Also known from October 1794 as Colonel Hewitt's Regiment of Foot, it lasted less than two years, until it was disbanded in October 1795.
15th September 2015
An extract from a set of notes by Mildred Brock 'from information derived from Mr Arthur Brouard, the owner of the two houses, and her own researches into the records of the parish of St Pierre du Bois.' Read at a meeting of the Société Guernesiaise, 22 July 1933.
22nd May 2015
28 May 1753 Nicolas Lawrence, probably Nicolas Laurens [Old Bailey].
22nd May 2015
Memoirs of the extraordinary military career of John Shipp, late a lieut. in His Majesty's 87th regiment. Shipp (1784-1834) twice won a commission from the ranks before the age of thirty-two, and his memoirs were extremely popular, being published in four editions. He writes about his time at Guernsey as a young man in Chapter III. He was fourteen or so, and lead fifer in the 22nd Cheshire Regiment of Foot at the time; the regiment was in the island from 1798 to 1799 (they were inspected here on 14 August 1799.)
15th April 2015
'How Alderney lost its minister in 1705.' From A N Le Cheminant's A Christmas Box of Channel Gems, in the Library's Channel Islands' Pamphlets XIV (Goss.-LeFebvre), pp. 29 ff. This 1700 law remained unrepealed, in Sark at least, and continued to have repercussions into the 20th century!
