From the Strangers' Guide to Guernsey and Jersey, Guernsey: Barbet, 1833, pp. 39 ff. 'But it will answer no good purpose for the shell collector in Herm, to employ the language of science, in his research for shells; he must employ popular terms, inasmuch as the good people of Herm are utterly ignorant of the phraseology of the conchologist, and are in the habit of calling things by such names as strike their senses. They have their silver, pink, purple, yellow, rose, and blue shells. There are fine subjects on what the inhabitants call the 'best shell banks,' but which the native collectors pass over, because they do not consider them as shells. For instance, at times here, are very rich corals and corallines, cast up by the action of the sea, only to be discovered by those who are judges of the nature of their research.'
The Library has in its extensive local militia collection a photocopy of what was no doubt a most invaluable document in its time: a suggested drill, and loading instructions for the flintlock musket, written in the early 18th century for the officers of the Guernsey militia by Phillips Loggers.
A letter to the Editor of the Star newspaper from the Guernsey historian Edith Carey, 14 December 1926, concerning the history of the French Prayer Book, published for the islands, the first (unpopular) edition of which exists in only one copy, in the Lambeth Palace Library.
From the Gazette de Guernesey, 4th August 1821
From The Terrific Record and Chronicle of Remarkable and Interesting Events , 1849. I was bound for Liverpool, says an American Captain, in a fine stout ship, of about four hundred tons burden, with a valuable cargo on board, and about ninety thousand dollars in specie. When we were about to sail, the mate informed me that he had shipped two foreigners as seamen, one a native of Guernsey, and the other a Frenchman from Brittany. I was pleased, however, with the appearance of the crew generally, and particularly with the foreigners. They were both stout and able-bodied men, and alert and…
From the Guernsey Free Churchman, November 1935, p. 80. Written originally in French by George Rabey.
Deutsche Guernsey Zeitung, The Guernsey Press, Guernsey, 1942-45; Deutsches Leben, Guernsey, 1943; and other materials produced by or for the occupying forces, 1940-45. [By Dinah Bott]
The Star, June 15th, 1915. Not entirely accurate!
The proprietor of the short-lived but interesting newpaper Le Publiciste, the printer and publisher Thomas Greenslade, published a letter in his newspaper on 26th December 1812, highlighting his disagreement with his editor, Thomas de la Rue. De la Rue was busy starting up his own newspaper in Guernsey, Le Miroir Politique, which had its first issue in February 1813, and went on to found the printing company that still bears his name.
The decoration of the salle à manger, or dining room, at Hauteville-House, Victor Hugo's residence in Guernsey, was finished in May 1857. Charles Hugo wrote of it:
From the Report of the Royal Commissioners deputed to the Island of Guernsey in 1815, published by J. A. Chevalier and N. Mauger in Guernsey in 1817. This investigation into Guernsey law came about after vociferous complaints to the Crown by non-native residents, or Strangers, about their lack of property and other rights in the island, especially when it came to laws concerning debtors and creditors.
A poem reproduced in J. Linwood Pitts' Guernsey and its Bailiwick, 1889.
