Library Book Collection

In death undivided: Alexander Herries

Alick Herries 1916 from A Young Borderer, Priaulx Library Collection

From the Star. The Library has in its collection a biography of Captain Herries, A young Borderer: a memoir of Alexander Dobrée Young-Herries, Captain, The King's Own Scottish Borderers, by David Frew, published in 1928.

Lost things: Alexander's Hotel

Alexander's Hotel from Priaulx Library Collection

Once one of the very favourite places to visit on a Sunday and eat pancakes, and subject of a poem in Guernsey French by George Métivier. The illustration, entitled 'Stacks of seaweed at Alexander's Hotel' is from R. Ellis' Rambles among the Channel Islands, by a Naturalist, 1854.

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.'

Autobiography of Thomas Fiott De Havilland, engineer and architect

Havilland Hall from Bellamy's Pictorial Directory in the LIbrary Collection.

Builder of the now lost 'De Havilland's Bulwark', St George's Cathedral, St Andrew's Kirk and many other buildings at Madras, now Chennai, and here in Guernsey, Havilland Hall. From his book, The De Havillands of Guernsey, published in 1854. He died in 1866. The woodcut is by Dr Thomas Bellamy from his Pictorial Directory of 1843, in the Library collection.

'A kindness I never, never can forget'

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

A melancholy pleasure: Nicolas Dobree and the heroes of Cobo

'But oh! what a tragic story we have to relate.' The bravery of a group of men from the Castel and their untimely deaths on the Gros Rock, March 9th, 1818; Nicolas Dobree, R.N., the two brothers Henry and George Le Tissier, Daniel Nicolle, and Captain Collenette. The photograph above shows the rock. 'Ils ont peri, meme en accomplissant un oeuvre de charite.'

A variety of vicars

A list of the incumbents of Alderney covered in Ernest Bigg's chapter of the same name in An Alderney Scrapbook, pp. 118 ff., published by the Alderney Society in 1972, and snippets about other ministers of the island.

Memories of Peter Perchard

Anecdotes of Alderman Peter (Pierre) Perchard, from The Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1832, following a request for information by John Jacob, author of the Annals, and from April, 1834. Guernsey privateers at work, and how to get rich quick.

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