April 1809 and 1819
From local newspapers.
Library Newspaper Collection
March 1820
Guernsey newspapers of 1820. Cemeteries, magicians, orang-utans and hot baths.
Servants in Silks
From The Sarnian Monthly Magazine, July, 1815. The illustration is from My Sketch Book, part of the Library's extensive collection of works illustrated by George Cruikshank, which can be viewed on request.
The first flower show, July 1833
The Gardener's Magazine, Vol. 9, 1833, and other extracts from local newspapers.
June 1811
From the Gazette de Guernesey, some translated from the original French. This was a very bad time for island banks, which had relied heavily on defaulting banks in London; the crash of the firm of Brock & Le Mesurier, operating out of London, took with it small local banks dependent on it.
May 11, 1815: Fire in Town
From The Sarnian Monthly Magazine, June 1825.
1897: Utopia in Alderney
A Tolstoyan colony (communal, semi-pacifist, vegetarian, elitist) was planned for Alderney.
Celebrations for Queen Victoria's wedding, Monday, February 10, 1840
Guernsey was muted in its celebration of the royal wedding in 1840. Not everybody agreed with the official approach, and things got rather fraught.
March 1811: from the newspapers
News from March 1811, 200 years ago in Guernsey. Action needs to be taken: flour, and therefore rents, are becoming too expensive and the poor are suffering; ships are being captured by the enemy in local waters and no defence is being offered. If this made you depressed, you could always go to the theatre—if you could afford it.
The Eidouranion
William Berry's theatrical lectures on popular astronomy, 1811, advertised in the Mercure.