Guernsey underwent a remarkable transformation in the nineteenth century. From a relatively insignificant backwater island based on subsistence agriculture and linguistically and culturally steeped in old Norman French it had, by the eve of the First World War, become a thriving and dynamic society with Anglicisation clearly in the ascendancy. Much of this change can be attributed to the commercialisation of agriculture in response to the British market for horticultural products, the influx of immigrants especially from England and the influence of the dominant parish of St Peter Port which acted as a catalyst for the forces of modernisation and change. As Dr Crossan writes: ‘new commercial possibilities were dismantling ancient demographic and social restrictions, and a world that had been isolated and inward-looking for a millennium was slowly becoming more open and diverse.’ (p. 212).

Dr Crossan has produced an extremely well-researched and neatly written account of Guernsey's population and migration movements in this transition period. The detail extracted from documentary sources is indeed impressive, although fortunately she does not allow the factual material to overshadow the macro picture of economic and social change. Somewhat surprisingly, she plays down the importance of immigration and the role of St Peter Port in the island's transformation. Although the non-native inhabitants formed around one quarter of the population throughout the period 1841 to 1901, Dr Crossan sees this influx as being more a by-product of economic forces on the grounds that without economic change migrants would not have been tempted to move to Guernsey. Similarly, the role of St Peter Port, the centre of the island's economy, is downgraded despite the fact that it, along with the parishes of Vale and St Sampsons, accounted for ninety-one per cent of non-natives in 1841 and eighty-one per cent in 1901. Notwithstanding the shift away from subsistence farming in the hinterland and the decline in the relative importance of St Peter Port, the latter, accounting for forty-three per cent of the total population in 1911, remained the hub of Guernsey's economy and society throughout the nineteenth century and the main force behind modernising trends in society, language and institutions.

It is perhaps paradoxical that migrants (mainly English, French and Irish) were attracted in such large numbers given the fact that they were not exactly welcomed with open arms by the native islanders. The newcomers suffered various political, civil and social disabilities, they were often deported, while state institutions were slow to adapt to their needs. This all seems to point to the fact that labour and enterprise will gravitate to locations where economic forces are strong, irrespective of political and institutional factors.

After reading such a splendid volume on the nineteenth century one hopes that Dr Crossan will continue the story of Guernsey's on-going transformation in the twentieth century.