14th January 2016
Two similar and unpleasant cases from the first half of the 14th century, one in the time of Edward I, the second under Edward II. Original documents in Latin. The illustration is of a French girl of the period, from Mercuri and Bonnard's Costumes Historiques des XIIe-XVe siècles, Paris: A Lévy fils, 1860, I, p. 78, in the Library Collection.
6th January 2016
In Guernsey the authorities could, if they wished, make use of the jehennet, or 'Jenny,' better known as ... the rack. It appears, however, that they preferred strappado. The illustration is from Fox's Book of Martyrs, revised John Malham: London, Thomas Kelly, 1814, in the Library Collection.
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.
16th October 2015
A ghost story, from The Stranger's Guide to the islands of Guernsey and Jersey, Guernsey: Collins /Barbet 1833, pp. 17-18. The illustration is from The Channel Islands, historical and legendary sketches, a book of poetry by C J Metcalfe, Jnr., London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co., 1852.
7th October 2015
A translation of George Métivier's dictionary entry for Guernsey's dread black dog, or Tchîco, p. 461. [By Dinah Bott]
17th September 2015
A list of the photographs in Carel Toms' book, Guernsey's forgotten past, published in 1992. Many of these photographs are in the Library's Carel Toms Collection; please contact the Library for further information.
26th May 2015
F F Dally, in his Essay on the Agriculture of the Channel Islands, Barbet, 1860, in Channel Islands pamphlets X in the Library. The photograph is from The Channel Islands, by 'Lesser Columbus,' Southampton: London & South Western Railway Company, 1895.
26th May 2015
From Frank Feather Dally's 1860 Essay on the Agriculture of the Channel Islands, Channel Islands pamphlets X, in the Library. The sarcloir, or sarcleur. The illustration is from Jacob's Annals, 1830.
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.)
13th May 2015
Edith Carey, in The Guernsey Society Report and Transactions for 1922 (pp. 89-90), quotes the following mystical occurrence from a 1922 article in Blackwood's Magazine, 'A Welsh Ride,' by Edmund Vale:
