Guernsey-set comedy has BBC premiere
A Scottish murder led to a Guernsey suicide when police caught up with the man who had poisoned his parents and their dinner guests and fled to the Channel Islands. Killer John Hutchinson had faked his own death, but police weren't so earily fooled. When they cornered him in a St Peter Port guest house, he drank a bottle of prussic acid, which had contained enough of the liquid to kill 16 people.
St Sampson was ordained a bishop this week in 521. Although he was born in Wales and died in France, he spent some time in Guernsey on his travels, which was sufficient to make him the island’s patron saint.
Guernsey engineer Thomas Fiott de Havilland, who built many important buildings in Madras and was court martialed for mutiny, died in Guernsey this week in 1866. He had returned to the island during his retirement and taken up politics.
The Channel Islands were cut off from the outside world this week in 1877 when the sole communications cable between Guernsey and the mainland snapped. Communication had to revert to the steam packet as a six-week operation to repair the break swung (slowly) into action. Fortunately there are now enough backup cables for a complete cut-off never to be likely again.
Guernsey’s first banker died this week in 1844. Thomas Priaulx had been born in Guernsey in 1762 and built up his own private army before moving into banking. After many changes of ownership, his bank is now part of RBS.
The Guernsey Railway ran its first services this week in 1892, between Town and St Sampson, on an electrified line it was leasing from Siemens. Because there was no mains electricity in the island it had to generate its own power in a building at its depot.
Guernsey-born Marie Ozanne refused to be subdued during the occupation, frequently protesting against German treatment of the Jews and continuing to preach in St Peter Port. Eventually they put her under house arrest, but she died before her release, this week in 1943, aged just 37.
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