Social History

A letter to his aunt: April 1834

Detail from Cruikshank My Sketchbook 1834 Priaulx Library Collection

From the Star of April 28th, 1834. A light-hearted letter to the Editor, purportedly to his aunt, from a frequent correspondent to the newspaper, a military officer resident on the island who went by the name of 'Time-Killer,' with his observations on houses, high society, and the behaviour and looks of Guernsey ladies and gentlemen. The illustration is from Cruikshank's 1834 My Sketchbook, part of the extensive collection held by the Library.

Peter Paul Dobree on Cadiz, Spanish ladies, and politics, 1811

A letter from Peter Paul Dobrée, (1782-1825), who was born in Guernsey and became Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge University in 1823. In 1811 he had visited 'Don Pedro' (Peter Carey) Tupper, the Guernsey-born and immensely wealthy British consul in Valencia. The illustration of Cadiz is from Sir John Carr's Descriptive travels in the southern and eastern parts of Spain and the Balearic isles, in the year 1809, London: 1811, in the Library collection.

September 1858

From the Star newspaper.

Bailiwick Prisoners-of-War, 1813

A letter from Paris, dated 3 July 1813, to Harry Dobree, who organised collections for the welfare of the prisoners. [From the Gazette de Guernesey, September 13, 1813.]

Dead cats and horsewhips: August 1825 in the Royal Court

Two unusual court cases from the Gazette de l'Isle de Guernesey, August 1825 [from the French].

14 February 1814: A Guernseyman's golden Valentine

Dug from Lima's golden mine, We hail it as our Valentine. HMS Menelaus recaptured a very valuable French prize, the Spanish treasure-ship the St Juan Baptista. The master was a Guernseyman, and Guernsey people are often very careful with money. This one certainly was. The account is from The Life of a Sailor by Frederick Chamier (1796-1870), some of whose tales are probably rather tall.

Christmas 1607: what fun!

From the Acts of the Guernsey Colloquy, a document of exceptional local importance in the Library Collection. The Gathering of Ministers and Elders gives its judgment.

December 1826

Extracts from The Star (Guernsey Weekly Advertiser).

23 October 1660: Lightning destroys the Moulin des Monts

From the notebook of Pierre Le Roy, as printed in The Guernsey Magazine of 1874. With notes from the Library MS Peter Mollet's Notebook; and an eyewitness account from the Reverend Thomas Le Marchant. The illustration is from an engraving by Baillie based on a watercolour by Joshua Gosselin of five companies of the 83rd Royal Glasgow Volunteers encamped on the Moulin des Monts. Gosselin also painted another view of the Moulin des Monts, which is in the Guernsey Museum collection.

A bachelor's paradise: Guernsey ladies, October 1825

An extract from an article published in the Star of October 18, 1825. 'The observations that follow have been copied from The Morning Herald. They will tend to show what views some strangers are apt to form of our local peculiarities; if, indeed, they can be taken as the real views of the writer, which, from the incorrectness of his statements, and the exaggerated description he has given of advantages and disadvantages, beauties and defects, we more than doubt.' The young lady in the portrait is Anne Priaulx.1

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