Guernsey murder inquiry ends in suicide
Aurigny was founded this week in 1968 when British United Airways dropped its Alderney to Guernsey service and some Alderney locals were worried that their island was being cut off. The solution was simple: set up a rival. Alderney resident Sir Derrick Bailey did just that, choosing to run services under the name Aurigny, drawn from the Norman word for Alderney. Over its first 12 months it carried 45,000 people between the islands in its distinctive yellow and white livery, which was chosen because Bailey’s father had been a horse racer, and his jockeys had always worn those colours when representing his stable.
A Scottish murder led to a Guernsey suicide this week in 1911 when police caught up with the man who had poisoned his parents and their dinner guests and fled to the Channel Islands. When cornered in a St Peter Port guest house, killer John Hutchinson 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 stopped off in Guernsey on his travels on either side of the Channel, 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 cut-off never to be likely again.
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 on 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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