Servants in Silks
From The Sarnian Monthly Magazine, July, 1815. The illustration is from My Sketch Book, part of the Library's extensive collection of works illustrated by George Cruikshank, which can be viewed on request.
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.
7 February 1854: Thomas Falla writes from Guernsey to Victor Hugo in Jersey
Hugo's daughter Adèle kept a diary while the family were in Jersey. The original is in the Morgan Library in New York and the Maison Victor Hugo in Paris. In it she records conversations with Hugo during the Tapner affair. Here is a translation of the entry for the 9 February, 1854, a letter from Thomas Falla, John Charles Tapner's advocate during his trial for murder: [By Dinah Bott]
January 1854: Off to Australia
Horrible death of a mystery man, too many islanders are going to Australia, the passengers of the brig Secret, mind your head on the lamp!
Jean Falla's Eldership, 1688
This document was transcribed by Edith Carey and added to her own copy of the Pedigree of the Falla Family.
A February selection: desperate people
Governor Ling thinks poor children are too much of a nuisance; Anne Le Page's remedies don't work and she ends up in the Cage; an interesting proposal from France; Mrs Thomas and Mrs Langworthy have a fight.
How to bring up your daughters: tongue-in-cheek advice from 1811
From the Gazette de L'Isle de Guernesey, March 30, 1811. Outrageous! The illustration is a detail from a fashion plate of July 1807, and is in the Library Collection.
The Eidouranion
William Berry's theatrical lectures on popular astronomy, 1811, advertised in the Mercure.
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.
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.
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.