Lieutenant-Colonel Elkington and the retreat from Mons, 1916
'How an Old Elizabethan made good: the stirring story of Lieutenant-Colonel Elkington.' The Star's take on a notorious incident, published in September 1916.
Military
Lieutenant Auguste Bulteau, 1916
We regret to record the death of Lieutenant A. Bulteau, 7th French Colonial Infantry Regiment, and proprietor of the Caves de Bordeaux, Upper Mansell Street. which occurred on June 16 at Hai-Phong, Tonking, China, from abcess of the liver. [The Star.]
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.
Captain Sir Robert John Le Mesurier McClure
Circumstance and media frenzy made him one of the most famous men in the world in the 1850s and 1860s. But who remembers him now?
French emigres buried in St Peter Port, 1796
C. Hettier, Les Relations de la Normandie et de la Bretagne avec les Iles de la Manche pendant l'émigration, 1885.
A sorry tale: the duel between Thomas Andros and Kenneth Beauvais, 1780
A duel mentioned by Elisha Dobrée in his Diary (which covers the years 1753-1789). Kenneth Beauvais was mortally wounded, though it was considered a duel 'with general good consequences.'
The Fund for the Relief of Guernsey Prisoners in France, 1806
Supplement to the Gazette de Guernesey of 16 August 1806.
The death of Mary Saumarez, October 1812
A letter from the Library's Mann-Dobrée collection, edited by Julia de L. Mann: Anne Dobrée to Henry Routh, October 8, 1812. Nineteen-year-old Mary Dobrée Saumarez was the eldest daughter of Admiral James Saumarez and his wife, Martha Le Marchant; Anne was her cousin. Henry 'Harry' Le Mesurier, son of Havilland, had just lost his arm at the Battle of Salamanca.
Lines, on the lamented death of Captain Dobree, R N
'Who lost his life in a humane attempt to save the lives of shipwrecked seamen on the coast of this island.' From L'Independance, March 14th, 1818; followed by excerpts from the sermon given at the Castel church on 15th March 1818 by Nicolas' young contemporary, the Reverend William Guille. The watercolour of the church is dated 1804 and is signed JM (for Dr John MacCulloch).
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.