Articles

January 1816: Order-in-Council of February 1660

From the Gazette de Guernesey, January 6, 1816, respecting 'strangers' abusing their position by selling goods retail rather than wholesale and thus undermining the local economy. The 1660 letter from the Privy Council is in its original English: the Gazette provided a translation into French for the benefit of the malefactors, perhaps!

Gaol returns 1880

From the Star of January 4, 1881. The following is the list of convicted prisoners from the 1st January to the 31st December 1880:

January 1881: Storms and snow

From the newspapers, including severe storms and gales in Guernsey.

January 1837

From the Mann-Dobrée letters, in the Library.

The Elizabeth, 1745

From The Gentlemen's Magazine , XV, p. 694. The Elizabeth , MacKenzie, from Virginia, taken the 15th inst. off Falmouth, by the Lys privateer of St Maloes, and the same night lost on the rocks off Guernsey, but two English and eleven Frenchmen saved.

17 August 1822: A presentation to Daniel De Lisle Brock: donations

Subscribers to the fund giving thanks to the Bailiff for his efforts in stopping restrictive clauses of a proposed Corn Bill, from L'Independance and The Star, and for sorting out problems with the Rum Bill, from the lucrative privileges of which the Bailiwick had been excluded. The Artisans and the Country parishes collected separately for different pieces of plate, presented in 1823.

Kemp's rock

John Kemp, John Kemp, so bad they hanged him twice! The strange case of John Kemp, and the mystery as to why the rock was named after him is solved.

August 1810

From the Gazette de Guernesey. The illustration shows the prime, from Grisier's 1864 Les Armes et le duel, in the Library. See Monsieur Siordet's fencing school, below.

Dancing and dissolute music, 1583

From the Recueil d'Ordonnances de la Cour Royale, Vol. I, 1852, ed. R. MacCulloch. This seemingly repressive edict in fact represents the desperation felt by the authorities, who were unable to control the excesses of Guernsey youth, no matter how hard they tried.

Prison returns, 1888

From the Guernsey Magazine (Monthly Illustrated Journal), February, 1889.

Mrs William Sharshaw

A brief obituary of a pioneering woman, from The Monthly Illustrated Journal (the Guernsey Magazine), February 1889. Mary Esther Sharshaw, born in October 1821, daughter of Henry Cumber and Mary Gallienne, was a pharmacist. The obituary does not mention that she came from two families of prominent Quakers. The two photographs of Mary, which are reproduced courtesy of their owner, both show her with a book. In the lower picture she is sporting a fine calabash, a typical Guernsey ladies' hat; the photograph is by her sister, the Guernsey photographer Sarah Louise Cumber.

Flouncing: July 1834

Cruikshank sketch, short dress 1834, from Priaulx Library Collection

Vive la Flounce! A comic piece in the form of a letter to the Editor of the Star newspaper of July 24, 1834, on the islands' peculiar custom of 'flouncing,' or affiancing, by a visiting wit who called himself 'Time-killer;' and a description of flouncing in Alderney, from Captain Wood's Subaltern Officer, published in 1825. The pictures are from Cruickshank's Sketchbook of 1834-6, part of the Priaulx Library's extensive collection of work by this illustrator.

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