Castle Cornet threatens Napoleon
From Collins' Stranger's Guide to Guernsey, 1833, p. 66.
A Farmer's Vacation, 1873: Guernsey dairy farming
From Scribner's Monthly Magazine, X (5) September 1873, later collated and published as A Farmer's Vacation.
A Farmer's Vacation, 1873
Guernsey, from an article in the influential American publication, Scribner's Monthly Magazine, September 1873; the article is one of a series eventually brought together as a book, A Farmer's Vacation, by George Wearing, published in the same year. Interest in the exportation of Guernsey cattle to North America and their management was bringing significant numbers of US farmers or their agents to Guernsey in this period. Wearing had first visited Jersey, to compare their agricultural procedures. Below is the Couture Water Lane in St Peter Port, admired by the author.
The Moie de Mouton and the unfortunate sheep of Sark, 1854
The Moie de Mouton cave, by a credulous R. Ellis, from the book Rambles among the Channel Islands, by a naturalist, 1854.
The Creux Mahie, October 1888
The largest cave in Guernsey, once a major tourist attraction. From the Monthly Illustrated Journal, (Guernsey Magazine), October 1888, p. 85; and the cave in 1951, when a party of three including a press photographer go in search of bats there. The illustration is a detail looking out of the Creux Mahie from a small 19th century visitor's guide to the cave.
Herm
From Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, 1831.
Charlie Chaplin
From the Guernsey Press of May 11th, 1939; 'Heard in the Bordage' by Stargazer.
11 September 1248, rights of islanders in the time of King John
Extracts from the bound collection of transcribed MSS known as the Nicolas Dobrėe MSS. All in beautiful copperplate, they include versions of charters and other Royal Orders and Acts, and various letters patent and so on that were obviously regarded as highly significant by the volume's owner. Followed by a transcription made in 1730 of the Constitutions of King John, from 'an old translation into French from the original in Latin ... copied from the Book of Mr H Mauger, Comptrolleur,' part of a collection of legal documents probably belonging to former Bailiff Peter de Havilland.
A Farmer's Vacation, 1873: Sark
From George Wearing's A Farmer's Vacation, 1873, pp. 231 ff. The photographs are from the Library collection; that of the Seigneurie in Sark is by Thomas Singleton and dates from c. 1875; above is Baker's Valley in around 1880. 'The population of the island is less than six hundred souls, and of these over ten per cent are confirmed drunkards.'
Elie Brevint on witchcraft
Elie Brevint (1587-1674) was minister of Sark from 1612. His father Cosmé, also a minister, was a Huguenot refugee from Angoulême who had accompanied Helier De Carteret from Jersey in his colonisation of Sark. Transcriptions and microfilm of Elie's 14 Notebooks, which were found in a loft in Sark in the 19th century, are held in the Priaulx Library. Elie appears to be a sensible and rational man with a curious and detached mind, until he turns to these sorts of subject: the Pousseresse, perturbateurs, and salamanders. The illustration is of the Tormento do Tacto, or Torture, from Alexander Périer's O Desengano dos Pecadores of 1724, in the Library.
The History of the Jeux St George: post 1858
Another extract from the Monthly Illustrated Journal, July, 1888.
The French Prayer Book
A letter to the Editor of the Star newspaper from the Guernsey historian Edith Carey, 14 December 1926, concerning the history of the French Prayer Book, published for the islands, the first (unpopular) edition of which exists in only one copy, in the Lambeth Palace Library.