Guernsey people
By Frank Feather Dally. Guernsey folk love a good funeral.
Descriptions of the islands
Guernsey in 1775 and in 1837
By Ferdinand Brock Tupper, in Duncan's The Guernsey and Jersey Magazine III (1837), pp. 233 ff.
A Farmer's Vacation, 1873: Sark
From George Wearing's A Farmer's Vacation, 1873, pp. 231 ff. The photographs are from the Library collection; that of the Seigneurie in Sark is by Thomas Singleton and dates from c. 1875; above is Baker's Valley in around 1880. 'The population of the island is less than six hundred souls, and of these over ten per cent are confirmed drunkards.'
The Moie de Mouton and the unfortunate sheep of Sark, 1854
The Moie de Mouton cave, by a credulous R. Ellis, from the book Rambles among the Channel Islands, by a naturalist, 1854.
Herm
From Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, 1831.
Four-horned ewes and six-horned rams, 1779
From the New Universal Traveller, Containing a Full and Distinct Account of All the Empires, Kingdoms, and States, in the Known World, by Jonathan Carver, 1779.
The Guernsey farmhouse and cottage, 1846
Continuing the extract from the Dublin University Magazine, 1846. The Guernsey diet and the lower classes' utter lack of musicality.
Alderney and Sark, 1838: under a bright sun, there is beauty everywhere
Chamber’s Journal, 1838. 'Both Alderney and Serk enjoy an excellent climate, and on that account a few residents, chiefly retired officers, have fixed their abode in these islands. But the luxuries of life are too scarce to render the small Channel isles ever the chosen abode of the wealthy.' 'It may seem strange to say of any portion of the British dominions, that reading is unknown: such, however, is the case in Alderney.'
The Guernsey peasant and patois, 1846
The swarthy locals and their barbarous dialect, an excerpt from the Dublin University Magazine, 1846. This is no doubt based on Inglis' 1834 description of the Guernsey peasant: 'I cannot greatly compliment the personal appearance of the Guernsey country people. There are dark and sparkling eyes among the women .... The men are, with few exceptions, badly limbed; and among the women too, the bust is better than the ankles.'
Guernsey, its present state and future prospects: Society, 1846
From the second half of a long but entertaining two-part article from the Dublin University Magazine of 1846. 'Let us now hasten to the proper subject of this paper, the state of society in Guernsey.'