Descriptions of the islands

Eliza Cook's Trip to Sark

30th May 2025

by Henry Brittan Willis, after John Watkins lithograph, 1840s-1850s NPG D34087

From Eliza Cook's Journal, Saturday, August 19, 1854. Eliza Cook was born in Southwark in 1818 as one of eleven children to a tinsmith. She began her career in poetry at a very young age, and had much success, her poems being published in newspapers and proving especially popular as songs when set to music. She was a Chartist, and her poems often deal with the "levelling-up" of the poor. From 1849-1854 she wrote, edited and published Eliza Cook's Journal for, she said, 'utility and amusement'. Despite her popularity, she is now largely overlooked. The portrait is by Henry Brittan Willis, after John Watkins:lithograph, 1840s-1850s, (c) National Portrait Gallery, NPG D34087

Guernsey, Jersey, Underwear, and Socks

16th August 2024

Holiday Reminiscences of Guernsey and Sark, from the Guernsey Press and Star of Friday 19th June 1903.

A Parson's Log

28th December 2023

New Year in the Channel Islands. From the Star, 17 January 1930.

Victor Hugo and Guernsey: My school years at Elizabeth College, by Jean Hugo

10th May 2019

Pauline and Jean Hugo arriving at Elizabeth College, Guernsey

My school years at Elizabeth College, by Jean Hugo (1894-1984), from his autobiographical work, Le Regard de la mémoire, Paris: Actes Sud, 1983. Fond memories of Guernsey and characters such as 'Soapy Sam' and 'Peewee' are expressed in painterly language by the artist and great-grandson of Victor Hugo, who was a boarder at Elizabeth College. The illustration is of a drawing made by Jean's stepfather, René-Georges Hermann-Paul (1874-1940), of Jean, his mother Pauline, and the valet de chambre arriving for Jean's first term at Elizabeth College in 1907. This drawing was sold at Christie's, Paris, in 2012.By Dinah Bott. From the French.

A stroll through town as it was 70 years ago

23rd July 2015

Commercial Arcade circa 1903, Priaulx library Collection

From the Star, July 1944. Funeral cheese and scarlet eggs, Granny Ogier, and a leopard and a Lamb. The illustration shows the Arcade around 1903; the shops are Roger's the jewellers and Cox's bootmakers.

St Peter Port, 1831

27th April 2015

From Samuel Lewis' Topographical Dictionary of England &c, 1831.

A run to the Channel Islands

20th March 2015

Extracts from an article in the United Service Magazine, Vol. 26, 1838. The author seems very much to prefer Guernsey to Jersey!

Turner's Guernsey Sketchbook

12th March 2015

In 1931 Spencer Carey Curtis, acting on a tip-off from a Jersey antiquarian, Major N V L Rybot, visited the British Museum to hunt out one of Joseph Mallord William Turner's sketchbooks, labelled 'Guernsey:'

A very detached house indeed, November 1947

Brecqhou 1962, Priaulx Library Collection

A visit to the island of Brecqhou, by Bernard Brett, from The Star, November 1947. The detail is from a 1962 photograph in the Library collection.

High Street East; more reminiscences of the 1860s

From the Evening Press, Monday, December 9, 1940. Part Two. 'In the first article the shops from Smith Street to Church Square on the right hand side were dealt with; today we take the return journey, examining those premises which then occupied the east side of the street.'

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