Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for GUERNSEY

GUERNSEY, one of the Channel islands. It lies in the gulf of Avranches and in the bay of Mont St. Michael, off the coast of Normandy, 21 miles SSW of Alderney, 30 NW of Jersey, 61 NNW of St. Malo, 62 N W by N of Granville, 75 S of Weymouth, 92 SE of Plymouth, and 113 SW by S of Southampton. Its form is nearly triangular, similar to that of Sicily. Its length, northeastward, is 9 miles; its breadth, 5 miles; its circuit, including curvatures, about 30 miles; and its area, 15, 560 acres. Its surface declines from south to north; is varied with hills and little eminences; and possesses numerous springs, and many fine, clear, gravelly streams. The south coast is steep, bold, and inaccessible; consists of cliffs, rising to the height of 270 feet; and presents rocky headlands, intersected by deep ravines. The north coast, excepting a few rocky hillocks, is commonly low and flat; and the country inland from it rises gradually from a level very little above high water mark. Few detached rocks lie off the south; but skerries and sunk rocks lie off all the other sides, for a mile or two, and, together with strong sea currents and high tides, render the approach extremely hazardous to strangers. Yet the roadstead of St. Peter Port is good and safe; and a new harbour there, commenced in 1853, affords ample facilities for commerce. The rocks of the island are chiefly granite, sienite, and gneiss; and they are extensively quarried for exportation as kerb and paving stone, from the harbour of St. Sampson. The soils, though lying on such rocks, are generally fertile; the low lands yield very fine pasture; even the higher parts afford plentiful harvests; and the very cliffs are covered with verdure to the water's edge. Yet some waste grounds are in the north and west, and are covered with furze, which is cut for fuel. The rural inhabitants are generally owners of the land they occupy; and many of them combine farming with some handicraft, or with fishing. Most of the estates or farms are of less extent than 12 acres; yet most of the houses on them are neat and comfortable cottages. Pars nips were, at one time, the staple produce; potatoes also were a staple till the blight of 1846, but are now more imported than exported; barley and oats, likewise, are more imported than exported; and wheat, clover, and mangel wurzel, are now the chief crops. Butter of very fine quality, and of bright golden colour, is largely produced on dairy farms. The Guernsey cow is somewhat larger and of darker colour than the ordinary high prized Alderney cow; and is maintained in rigid purity, by careful exclusion of every foreign breed. Sheep are rare; horses are of an inferior kind, but have recently been much improved; hogs are of large size, and numerous; and poultry is reared in large quantities for the market. Fruit also is an object of care; and oranges, peaches, melons, myrtles, and other fruits and flowers, owing to the mildness of the climate, are raised in the open air. Both fish and molluscs, in great abundance and in much variety, are taken on the shores. Cider is made in considerable quantities, chiefly for local consumption; and vinegar is largely manufactured, both for home consumption and for exportation. The manufacture of flour from foreign corn was formerly a large employment, but has been greatly curtailed by free trade; yet there are still four steam mills, and several wind and water mills. The distilling of spirits from potatoes, for the English market, was once carried on to the average of 24, 000 gallons a year; but has been discontinued. A very inferior beer is made in three or four breweries. Cordials, in imitation of the West Indian liqueurs, are manufactured. Wines, principally port, are stored, bottled, and reshipped, by several London companies; with the advantage of ripening and mellowing in one third less time than in the London cellars, and of saving some expenses. Soap, candles, cordage, biscuit, tobacco, and stuff are manufactured. Bricks and ornamental pottery are made; and ship building, to a considerable extent, is carried on. Regular steam communication is maintained with Alderney, Jersey, Weymouth, and Southampton; and constant communication also with the French coast. About 17, 000 tons of shipping belong to the island; and about 600 sailing vessels clear and arrive in the course of a year.

Guernsey has only one town, St. Peter Port; and is divided into the ten parishes of St. Peter Port, St. Sampson, Vale, St. Andrew, St. Martin, St. Mary de Castro, St. Saviour, St. Peter du Bois, Forest, and Torteval. Pop. of St. Peter Port alone, in 1851, 17, 070; in 1861, 16, 388. Houses, 2, 459. Pop. of the whole island, in 1851, 33, 719; in 1861, 35, 365. Houses, 4, 864. The government and the customs present a mixture of the times of Normandy prior to the conquest of England, and of the times which have succeeded. The government is vested in a lieutenant governor, appointed by the Crown, a bailiff, appointed by the Crown, and two bodies called the states of election and the states of deliberation. The states of election consist of the bailiff and 12 jurats of the royal court, eight rectors of parishes, the Queen's procureur, 22 douzaines from the central division of St. Peter Port parish, 48 donzaines from four other divisions of that parish, and 130 donzaines from the country parishes, -in all 222; and they assemble only to elect the sheriff and the jurats. The states of deliberation consist of the bailiff and jurats, the rectors, the Queen's procureur, 6 deputies of St. Peter Port, and 9 deputies of the country parishes, -in all 37; and they enact laws, levy taxes, and regulate all matters of finance; but their deeds, before possessing force, require to have the sanction of the Crown. The bailiff presides in both bodies of the states; and the lieutenant governor sits in the meetings of the states of deliberation, and takes part in the proceedings, but has no vote. A report, by a royal commission in 1846, says, -' ' The history of the states is involved in much obscurity. It is probable that they were originally constituted on the model of the Trois Etats in Normandy; the bailiff and jurats corresponding With the noblesse; the rectors of the parishes answering to the clergy; and the donzaines, an elected body in each parish, representing the Tiers Etat." The donzaines, as here indicated, are the chosen managers of parishes; they were originally, as their name implies, twelve in number for each parish, but are now in some instances more; they are elected for life, and have control over all the secular public affairs of parishes; and, in the case of St Peter Port, they act also as a police board. The royal court, for executive administration, is both civil and criminal; is conducted by the bailiff and twelve jurats; carries on its proceedings in the French language, excepting when English legal authorities are quoted, or when English witnesses are examined; and forms its decisions by a majority of the votes of the jurats, the bailiff having only a casting vote in the case of equal division. Appeals lie from it to the Queen in council, in cases where the subject is real property to the amount of £10 a year, or personal property to the amount of £200; but such appeals are of rare occurrence. A tax for general purposes is levied on all property, real or personal, belonging to natives or to strangers exercising any trade or profession; but it does not touch any stranger not exercising any trade or profession; and it amounts to only about 5s. on every £100 of capital, and it covers every purpose served elsewhere by assessed taxes, police tax, poor rates, and church rates. There are neither customs nor excise duties. The Crown revenue is derived from great tythes, manorial and feudal dues, rents of escheated tenements, forfeitures, court amercements, court fines, wrecks, and gravages; and it bears the expenses of certain salaries, the administration of justice, and the maintenance of the court house and jail. The revenue of the states is derived from a duty on all spirituous liquors consumed in the island, from licenses to publicans, and from rents of shops and houses; and it bears the expenses of roads, sea walls, public improvements, education, and disbursements for the militia. The ecclesiastical revenue consists of the small tythes, a certain proportion of the great tythes, and some wheat rents, for payment of the clergy; and a separate fund, derived from wheat rents, for repairing the churches, and meeting incidental expenses. The island is in the diocese of Winchester; and, together with Alderney and Sark, forms a deanery. The episcopal functions used to be discharged by a surrogate. The livings are ten rectories in the ten parishes, four chapelries in St. Peter Port, one chapelry in St. Mary de Castro, and a chapelry united with St. Peter Port rectory. The dissenting places of worship include Free Church of Scotland, Independent, Baptist, Quaker, Wesleyan Methodist, Primitive Methodist, New Counexion Methodist, Plymouth Brethren, and Bible Christian; and they are numerous, especially the Wesleyan. There is also a Roman Catholic church. Au endowed school is in every parish; and an endowed grammar school, founded in 1563, and known as Elizabeth college, is in St. Peter Port. The natives generally have the appearance of French people, and seem to inherit manners and customs from their Norman ancestors. The rural inhabitants speak a corrupted dialect of the old Norman French, often intermixed with perverted or ill pronounced English words; so that they can very badly, or not at all, be understood by strangers. The inhabitants of St. Peter Port generally speak a falsely-accented English; and even those of the higher classes, who have received the best education, rarely attain a pure English pronunciation. The country people have domestic utensils and farm implements in the old French fashion; and most of them live and dress in a poor and parsimonious way, and are so contented with it as rarely to be tempted into any extravagance. Yet some daughters of the middle class of farmers now display an excessive love of finery, and make such appearances on market days as contrast utterly to those made by their mothers, and as render them ridiculous in the eyes of strangers. An ordinary article of furniture in the common sitting room of every cottage and farmhouse is a lit de foaïlle, or "green bed, " a wide bedframe raised about 18 inches from the ground, and covered with dry fern or pea straw, on which the women knit or sew during the winter evenings. All classes are fond of dancing, especially on festive occasions; and then it is customary to suspend above the lit a canopy tastefully decorated with flowers and fern leaves. All classes also have a passion for conducting funerals with excessive display and expense; insomuch that a funeral cortège is usually a procession of great length, remarkable chiefly for the vast numbers that compose it, and often moving and behaving in a manner quite incongruous with the mournfulness of the occasion. Some other customs formerly prevalent were no less remarkable; but they have disappeared. "The changes wrought in a little more than eighty years, " says Tupper, "have exceeded those made in several preceding centuries; so altered are the habits and manners of natives of all ranks. Now the usual dinner hour is from four to five o'clock; for company, an hour or two later: while they go to balls at nine or ten o'clock-hours at which their great grandfathers returned from them. Excellent roads intersect the island in all directions; and private and hack carriages and pair, or with one horse, are very common; even the country people coming to market on Saturdays in their one-horse chaise."-The coin in use, excepting English sovereigns and silver at the post office, is French fivefranc pieces, two francs and half francs, Guernsey pence and half pence, and a Guernsey coin called doubles, eight of which go to a Guernsey penny. There are also onepound notes, issued by two local banking firms; and one of these notes represents twenty-four francs; but the exchange between the French coin and the English is one franc and a fraction in favour of the English, so that a Guernsey pound is worth about five per cent. less than an English pound.

Guernsey and the other channel islands appear to have been known to the Romans. Guernsey is thought to be the Sarnia of Autoninus; and perhaps it is the Granona mentioned by the Notitia in Armorica. It and the other islands "were given to Rollo and his Normans by Charles IV.,surnamed the Simple, king of France. From Rollo, after five successions, they came to William the Conqueror, who gave the command of them to his son Robert; but after King Henry I. had defeated his brother Robert, in 1108, he annexed Normandy and the islands to the crown of England, to which they ever after steadfastly adhered, till King John being found guilty of the death of his nephew, Arthur, duke of Britain, by the parliament of Paris, called together by Philip, king of France, to examine into it, was deprived of Normandy, which province revolted wholly from him, and never was since recovered; for King Henry III. being taken up with the barons' wars, was forced to neglect its recovery, and at length quit his title wholly to it, to rid himself of them. From that time they have continued firm in their allegiance, and are the only places that were William the Conqueror's inheritance that remain in this crown. The French have made divers attempts to reunite them to that kingdom with Normandy, but in vain. In the reign of Philip de Valois, Hugh Quiriel, admiral of France, made a descent upon Guernsey, and having taken the castle, held it three years; but it was again recovered by the English fleet in 1342. So also Evan, a Welshman, descended from the princes of Wales, but then serving the French king, surprised Guernsey in the time of King Edward III., but lost it again soon after. In Edward IV. 's days, while he was contending with King Henry VI. for the crown, they got possession of Guernsey, but were beat off by the valour of Richard Harles. ton, vadelect of the crown, as he was then called, for which the king rewarded him with the government, both of the island and castle. Again, in the minority of King Edward VI., 1549, the kingdom being embroiled with wars, Leo Strozzi, commander of the French galleys, invaded that island, but was repulsed with loss. '' Guernsey was taken by the parliamentarians, in the civil war of Charles I.; was the scene of a mutiny of the 104th regiment, in 1783; and was visited by Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, in 1846. See PETER PORT (ST.) and other articles.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "one of the Channel islands"   (ADL Feature Type: "islands")
Administrative units: Guernsey CrProt

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