June 1891: donated to the museum
Motley collections from the Guernsey and Jersey Magazine, June 1891, p. 362. 'The Guille-Alles Museum. The following objects have been added to the collection during the last three months:'
From Guernsey to Norwich, 1682-style
Another interesting letter from the physician Sir Thomas Browne to his son, describing his beloved daughter Elizabeth's voyage from Guernsey in May 1682 to visit him in Norwich, in the King's yacht Monmouth. Browne died later that year.
It's 1681: what's on the menu in Guernsey?
Three letters from Sir Thomas Browne, polymath and oyster expert. He wrote often to his children, of whom he seems very fond. His favourite daughter Elizabeth married his friend, Captain George Lyttleton, who was appointed Guernsey's Lieutenant-Governor in 1681. There is a copy in the Library of one of Browne's works, Pseudodoxia epidemica, published in 1686, which can be viewed upon request.
John Spicer Broughton Parker Hampton, 1721
From the Parish Registers of St Peter Port.
June 1811
From the Gazette de Guernesey, some translated from the original French. This was a very bad time for island banks, which had relied heavily on defaulting banks in London; the crash of the firm of Brock & Le Mesurier, operating out of London, took with it small local banks dependent on it.
Worse than Turks: Adrian Saravia on Guernsey, 1564
A letter from the first headmaster of Elizabeth College, a native of Artois, written in 1564/5 to the Secretary of State, William Cecil.
May 1661: Cromwell is erased from memory
An order of the Royal Court, May, 1661.
Fountain Street celebrates the peace of 1763
Fountain Street is decorated for a celebration in unusual style; by George Métivier, writing in the Elizabeth College Magazine of 1842. The illustration is of a painting depicting a view looking towards Fountain Street and the Town Church in 1799, the notoriously narrow part being at the end.
1897: Utopia in Alderney
A Tolstoyan colony (communal, semi-pacifist, vegetarian, elitist) was planned for Alderney.
Celebrations for Queen Victoria's wedding, Monday, February 10, 1840
Guernsey was muted in its celebration of the royal wedding in 1840. Not everybody agreed with the official approach, and things got rather fraught.
Irving Brock and the Huron chiefs: a most chimerical idea
'The most interesting characters I ever saw—whose appearance here has been more beneficial than if volumes had been printed on Indian civilization.' By Dinah Bott, Priaulx Library.
March 1811: from the newspapers
News from March 1811, 200 years ago in Guernsey. Action needs to be taken: flour, and therefore rents, are becoming too expensive and the poor are suffering; ships are being captured by the enemy in local waters and no defence is being offered. If this made you depressed, you could always go to the theatre—if you could afford it.