Conclusion

Summary

HOW, then, did Guernsey come to this pass? More specifically, to what extent were immigrants responsible for nineteenth-century cultural change, and to what extent was their contribution merely ‘a single facet of a deeper socioeconomic development’?

The Island had indeed come a long way since 1814, when William Berry had described a society where ‘the old Norman French’ was ‘generally spoken by all ranks’, and ‘economical’ urban merchants co-existed with country-dwellers ‘shut out from agricultural communication with the rest of the world’.

In the space of a century, the countryside had moved away from subsistence farming, and all ten of Guernsey’s parishes had become tied into the modern economy. St Peter Port, no longer the economic trail-blazer, had found a new raison d’être servicing the business and consumer needs of its hinterland. The other nine parishes, in a reversal of traditional roles, had become the primary source of insular revenue.

Within the 150 years since the 1760s, a large landless class dependent on wage labour had grown up within St Peter Port, spread to the quarrying parishes, and now played an increasingly important role in other parishes. Immigrants had formed the basis of this class. These immigrants had contributed to the economy in many ways. Artisans had provided craft skills in short supply locally. Retailers and small businessmen had provided commercial know-how and capital inputs. Unskilled workers had fulfilled a particular need in ensuring cheapness and continuity of labour supply at times when natives were loath to occupy this economic niche themselves.

Despite considerable emigration, Guernsey’s population had more than doubled in a century. Growth was maintained, in part, by a constant influx of youthful new immigrants, and it was given an additional fillip by the freedom of such migrants from the economic and social constraints which had traditionally held the local population in check. This demographic growth both mirrored and supported economic development.

Notwithstanding the benefits they brought, the reception immigrants met with was not one of unalloyed welcome. Insular legal and administrative structures were slow in responding to the need for labour mobility which came as part of the Island’s increasing integration with the wider world.