James Saumarez' account of the loss of the 28-gun frigate Boreas, wrecked on the Hanois rocks on November 28th, 1807. This disaster was one of the major factors in the eventual decision to erect a lighthouse there. The number of men who died is uncertain; 77 were saved. Captain Robert Scott's wife is also said to have been drowned. From Cobbett's Political Register, Vol. 12, 1807, p. 928.
Here's what the Guernsey Water Polo Association got up to in what they termed their 'crazy' Water Gymkhana of August 1938, from the Star.
Mr Havilland's house is consumed by fire: two accounts, one from Jean de la Marche's diary, the other from George Fashion's notebook. The photograph is of the Ruette Marie Gibaut (colloquially Fuzzey's Lane), in St Peter Port, in 1936, from the Library Collection.
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.
From the Star, June 8, 1837
Lots of trouble over French brandy. The illustration is a detail from one of the earliest photographs in the Library's collection, dating from 1845, showing Cadic's 'inn near the South Pier,' not far away at all from Cow Lane, the scene of the crime. Next door to his establishment was the inn, the 'Three Tuns,' proprietor Mrs Simon.
JOHN and JOSEPH ORCHARD having constructed a DIVING DRESS for the purpose of searching the Bottom of the sea in a moderate depth of water, beg leave to inform the public that they will, on TUESDAY MORNING at 10 o'clock, go down at the pier head and walk underwater towards Castle Cornet. This being the first thing of the kind ever made in this island, they invite the attention of the public to the above trial.
In 1610 Lord George Carew replaced the late Sir Thomas Leighton as Governor of Guernsey. Upon being called almost immediately back to England he left instructions for Amias De Carteret, his Lieutenant-Governor. This is an extract from a letter he wrote to De Carteret, dated 9th August 1610, at Castle Cornet, taken from Tupper's Chronicles of Castle Cornet, 1849.
Note on cider-making; by M. Bosc. (From The Accounts of the Meeting of the Agricultural Society of Rouen, 1823).
According to Jean de la Marche, on Sunday, August 5, 1636, the Earl of Danby was 'out hunting in his Island of Herm, whither he had taken the greater part of the Gentlefolks of the Town (although by so doing they profaned the Day) and he having given his Horse the Spur, it ceased not to rear and turn round and round until it had thrown him to the Ground.'
The execution of Cox and Shellard, from the Gazette de l'Isle de Guernesey, 17 July 1813. Final sentence handed down by the Guernsey Royal Court. [From the French.]
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.]
