Articles

Le Pelley notes from Col. Le Pelley's MSS II

Contrats pour lire: 21 July 1589. Jean Le Pelley fils Collas de St Pierre du Bois [sells ] 6 bs de rente a Thomas de Lisle. Ditto 18 June 1598. Collette Pezett fille de Jean, de St Pierre Port [widow] de Jean Le Fyvre [sells] pour £33 sterling d'Angleterre & 12bs d'annuelle rente, La Croutte Pezett en St André, au fyeu des Esperons, cont. 10 vergees de terre, au north du Cortill John Bailleull, à l'est [] des Gouyes appartenant à Martin Belin à cause de [sa] femme fille de Thomas de Garys. A Collas Le Pelley fils Charles. Do. 5th September 1570 . Edmond Ettur [sells] à Pierre Le…

Will of Thomas Le Pelley, 1643

From Edith Carey's Notes on Sark, Le Pelley MSS. [Presumably a contemporary] translation from the French. Court of Probate, London.

Elizabeth College Cricket XI, 1913

Four of these boys died in the First War. Photograph from the Library Collection.

Walter Ollivier: They used to swallow the gunpowder

Walter Ollivier in 1957, Priaulx Library Collection

Ollivier the gunsmith, by Bernard Brett, from The Star November 1947. The business at 1, Tower Hill, was begun by his great-great grandfather in 1800.

Will of Anne Blondel, 1662

No. 4 in Edith Carey's Wills and Legacies (Staff). The film of the original Ecclesiastical Court records may be consulted in the Library.

Will of Marie de la Rue 1663

No.5 in Edith Carey's Wills and Legacies, Staff.

The English Butcher and the Brewer, April 1801

Thomas Bishop posting of Frederick Mansell, 1801, Priaulx Library Collection

'Let me come at him, I will do for him, Damn him, a Butcher, I will do for him.'

The Metivier Family

St George from Bellamy's Pictorial Guide

Despite many advantages, the Métivier family, which included George Métivier (1790-1881), philologist and Guernsey's 'national' poet, suffered many ups and downs, and the collection of family letters held in the Library makes entertaining reading. The woodcut is by Dr Thomas Bellamy from his Pictorial Dirctory of 1843 in the Library collection.

The Harvey Family

Newlands, the Harvey house, from the Priaulx Library Collection

Throughout the occupation of Guernsey (1940-45) Winifred Harvey (1888-1976) kept a diary, which has been edited and published under the title The Battle of Newlands, and which is still in print. In keeping her diary, she followed a family tradition; the Harveys have left behind them comprehensive records from the middle of the 19th century, so detailed that their lives could virtually be reconstructed from them, and much of that material is here at the Library. Their house, Newlands, is illustrated in the photograph above, from the Library Collection.

Maria Rosetti

From St Peter Port to revolution. A request from Angela Jianu* of Warwick University for some research into the birth data of Marie Grant of St Peter Port has revealed the extraordinary history of a Romantic heroine, born here in Guernsey in 1819, daughter of Marie Le Lacheur, descendant of the Le Lacheurs of the Forest, and known today to all Romanians through her depiction as Revolutionary Romania, and because one of the main streets in Bucharest bears her name: Strada Maria Rosetti.

Ralph Durand

Ralph Durand (1876-45) came from an important Guernsey Huguenot family and was the Librarian at the Priaulx before and during the Second War. He was an explorer and author whose family history, described here, is full of interest, and includes refugees, soldiers, ministers, a provost of Eton, an actor-manager, and politicians.

The Family of Major-General John Gaspard Le Marchant

Elegiac verse from the Mercure, 1812, Priaulx Library Collection

'I am determined to rise to the head of my profession and nothing but death will stop me.' J. Gaspard Le Marchant was born into one of the most influential and possibly the wealthiest family in Guernsey. His was one of the most illustrious careers in the history of the the British Army, in which he single-mindedly founded the Royal Military College and revolutionised the training of officers. Highly esteemed by Wellington, he died a glorious if unnecessary death in 1812 at the Battle of Salamanca, following which a monument to him was erected in St Paul's Cathedral at public expense.

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