19th century

A letter from Quebec, 1817

25th August 2016
'Report from the missions: a letter from Monsieur de Putron, to the Editor. Quebec, January 1, 1817.' From the Magasin Méthodiste, 1818, p. 91, addressed to Jean de Queteville, Methodist pioneer and founder and editor of the magazine. Guernsey began very early to export French-speaking missionaries all over the world; poor Jean de Putron, however, felt let down by his Guernsey accent and inferior French, as spoken in Guernsey.

Prehistoric remains in Guernsey, from the Lukis MSS

28th June 2016
In the early 20th century, local historian Edith Carey made copious notes from various manuscripts belonging to the Lukis family into scrapbooks which are now in the Library collection. She collected the following observations about early island archaeology together and copied them again into the notes she made to the book Guernsey Folk Lore, intended to aid her as its editor in a putative new edition, which she never completed. The Lukis family (Frederick Corbin Lukis and his children) were all deeply interested in archaeology, and these journal notes give a very Guernsey flavour of the beginnings of archaeology as a science. The photograph is of 'Frederick Lukis, Esq., at the Du Tus cromlech, Guernsey' from an album in the Library's Harvey collection (the Harvey and Lukis families were related.)

Etienne Gibert to Nicolas Rabey, 1800

28th January 2016
By George Rabey, in The Guernsey Free Churchman, Vol. VI (3) March, p. 27. 'A good 126 years ago now ...' The detail is of Etienne Gibert (1736-1817) amongst the crowd in Matthias Finucane's Market-Place, Guernsey, 1809. He is here aged about 73. For a somewhat less quirky portrait of him see Nicolas De Garis, conscientious objector; there is a third portrait of him, exhibiting considerably more dignitas, in the Library collection.

Christmas expenditure 1829

16th December 2015
From Anne Sophia Harvey's account book (brown leather), Domestic Expenditure, [from] 1 January 1829, part of Library's extensive Harvey Collection. Anne Sophia Grut (1802-1844) was daughter of Peter Grut and Anne Collings, and married John Harvey. This account book ends in December 1834. A second account book, Anne Sophia Harvey's Household Expenditure, 1 July 1838, ends in December 1842.

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