Lost things: La Magdelaine

18th February 2016
A rather romanticised article by T Walter Carey, before 1892, probably from the Star newspaper. The photograph above is the one referred to in the article, from the Library Collection (blue cuttings book, Guernsey II, staff.) According to Lenfestey, H, Guernsey Place Names, 2014, this estate actually took its name from Magdeleine Gallienne, the widow of Abraham Lenfestey, in the early 18th century.

A ship's captain is taken hostage, April 1748

4th February 2016
 ‘April 1748. A prize, with wine and brandy, and a ransomer of £1000, taken by the Hanover privateer of Guernsey,’ reported in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1748. Ransoming captured prizes was a practice favoured by Guernsey privateers in the earlier years of privateering, often with an eye to selling on a valuable cargo, but frowned upon by the British authorities, who preferred prizes to be brought into port to be officially 'condemned.' When challenged upon the reason for their not having followed the authorized procedure, the Guernseymen would often answer that at the time they had been prevented by 'a contrary wind.'

Etienne Gibert to Nicolas Rabey, 1800

28th January 2016
By George Rabey, in The Guernsey Free Churchman, Vol. VI (3) March, p. 27. 'A good 126 years ago now ...' The detail is of Etienne Gibert (1736-1817) amongst the crowd in Matthias Finucane's Market-Place, Guernsey, 1809. He is here aged about 73. For a somewhat less quirky portrait of him see Nicolas De Garis, conscientious objector; there is a third portrait of him, exhibiting considerably more dignitas, in the Library collection.

Christmas expenditure 1829

16th December 2015
From Anne Sophia Harvey's account book (brown leather), Domestic Expenditure, [from] 1 January 1829, part of Library's extensive Harvey Collection. Anne Sophia Grut (1802-1844) was daughter of Peter Grut and Anne Collings, and married John Harvey. This account book ends in December 1834. A second account book, Anne Sophia Harvey's Household Expenditure, 1 July 1838, ends in December 1842.

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