La Manie des sobriquets: late 18th century nicknames
From Edith Carey's Scrapbooks, Vol. I.; the Lukis MSS.
Library Document Collection
Matthew De Sausmarez
Amongst several of the De Sausmarez family to bear this name, the Matthew De Sausmarez who lived in the island in the late 18th century is one of the best known. Amongst his titles was Châtelain of the Castle at Jerbourg, and it was he who built the Sausmarez Tower there, the only defensive tower of that era not following a military plan. It is unlikely that he did it out of altruism. J. Chepmell, in the MS Memoirs held at the Library, has some very unflattering things to say about him.
Jean Falla's Commission, 1663
Transcribed by Edith Carey in the Pedigree of the Falla Family, in the Library.
La Haie du Puits: from the Lukis MSS
More informal gossip from the memoirs of Mr Lukis and Mr Chepmell; the Le Marchant, Le Mesurier, Baynes, and Hutchesson families. How Dr Hutchesson 'fell between two fires.'
Julia de Lacy Mann
A brief introduction to the life of the scholar Julia de Lacy Mann, an Oxford economist and promoter of women's education, who was one of the last descendants of Margaret and Gother Mann. Without her work on her family letters Guernsey social historians would be very much the poorer. The arresting portrait of her shown here, attributed to Peter Greenham, is in St Hilda's College, Oxford, and is displayed here by kind permission of the College.
The Wedding of Margaret Baynes and Gother Mann, 1845
An entertaining letter from a collection in the Bodleian transcribed by Julia de Lacy Mann, the working copies of which are held in the Library. It describes in great detail the Guernsey wedding of Margaret Baynes, whose letters from Trinidad have recently been published.
What Sarah Fyers saw from a window in Gibraltar
17-year old Sarah Fyers was with her father with the garrison in Gibraltar in 1801, a few days before her wedding to Cornelius Mann, when she witnessed the first part of the Battle of Algeciras from the breakfast room. A handwritten copy of her eyewitness account is in the Dobree-Mann collection held at the Library. She was a close relation by marriage of Admiral James Saumarez, who played a crucial part in the battle and eventual victory.
The escape of Avicia Lernaise: from Edith Carey's notebooks
The Bordiers.
Execution and the gallows: les Fourques
Guernsey had many different locations for dealing out doom.
11 September 1248, rights of islanders in the time of King John
Extracts from the bound collection of transcribed MSS known as the Nicolas Dobrėe MSS. All in beautiful copperplate, they include versions of charters and other Royal Orders and Acts, and various letters patent and so on that were obviously regarded as highly significant by the volume's owner. Followed by a transcription made in 1730 of the Constitutions of King John, from 'an old translation into French from the original in Latin ... copied from the Book of Mr H Mauger, Comptrolleur,' part of a collection of legal documents probably belonging to former Bailiff Peter de Havilland.