Articles

The Library's unique collections are a treasure chest of unusual, interesting and sometimes surprising material just waiting to be found. This anthology, written by the Editor, is based on an eclectic selection of our archive. The author asserts her copyright on all material on the Priaulx Library website except where copyright of other authors is expressly notified. Permission to reproduce material from this website and full attribution to the author is required in all cases.

Georgian

Major Byng

Major William Byng is the best-known Guernsey dueller; there is a stone in Cambridge Park commemorating his death in 1795. Guernseymen were forbidden to duel in Guernsey and would usually travel to Jersey to fight it out, so the majority of duels that have taken place here in the island of which we know any details occurred between locals and a member of the garrison; in this case a quarrel arose between two serving soldiers.

Thomas de Sausmarez

From Edith Carey's Scrapbooks (Vol. 1: the Chepmell MS) in the Library. 'He had 28 children, but never more than 14 alive at a time.'

The sweetest place in Guernsey: Candie

From W T Money's diary of his visit to Guernsey in 1798, edited by Edith Carey, and reproduced in the Report and Transactions of the Societe Guernesiaise (1931). Not much has changed, not even the views from the Library that Money so much appreciated.

List of residents of Alderney who sheltered French priests 1792-3

The names of the Alderney people have been extracted and normalised.

Thomas Fiott De Havilland court-martial

The details of De Havilland's court martial, resignation, and restoration in India. 'Lord Minto, in his general orders from Madras, respecting the late defection or quarrel, published a list of twenty-two officers who were to be tried by court martial, or optionally to resign the service; my name was among these, and therefore I now avail myself of this opportunity to explain the grounds upon which I was implicated; in the hope that such explanation, faithfully given, may reach my descendants.'

The trial of George Barrington, 1787

George Barrington was indicted for feloniously stealing, on the 19th of January, 1787, at the parish of St. Martin in the Fields, a silk purse value 2d. and twenty-three guineas, value £24 3s. and one half-guinea, value 10s. 6d. the property of Havilland Le Mesurier, Esq. privily from his person. From the Lawyer's and Magistrate's Magazine, Vol. I., 1792.

'A kindness I never, never can forget'

A memoir of the late Colonel Havilland Le Mesurier. From the Gentleman's Magazine of 1814.

Views of James Saumarez in 1801

'A good deal of the grimace of a Frenchman'. A short biography from The European Magazine, and London Review, for October 1801; and a less kind opinion of the Admiral, written by Admiral Thomas Byam Martin, a veteran of his campaigns who had fallen out with him, parts of whose account are often regarded as at the least fanciful. Saumarez was prone to depression, however.

The Doyle Cup

From the Library and Museum of Freemasonry.

Ship movements, 1762

A selection from the London Chronicle, 1762.

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