Bailiff Harrison
Her father was born in 1902. He studied at the Middle Temple and was called to the Jersey Bar in 1925. In 1936 he was appointed Solicitor-General and served as such throughout the German Occupation, accompanying the Bailiff and Attorney-General to see the German surrender aboard HMS Beagle in 1945.
In June 1948 he succeeded Charles Duret Aubin as Attorney-General, going on to represent the Island’s interests when taking the dispute over the sovereignty of the Minquiers and the Ecréhous to the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
He received the OBE in 1951 before becoming the Island’s first Deputy-Bailiff in 1958. He eventually succeeded Lord Coutanche to become Bailiff in 1961 but held the position for less than a year, dying of cancer in April 1962.
Jersey Evening Post
His parents were Arthur Harrison and Annie Guiton, surnames that are synonymous in the Island with the Jersey Evening Post. It was Anne Guiton’s father Walter Ernest Ingram Guiton who began running the newspaper shortly after it was launched in 1890.
The newspaper was set up by H P Buttersworth, with Walter Guiton as the printer, but he bought it from Buttersworth within weeks of its launch.
He was editor of the newspaper until 1927 when he was succeeded by his son and Jurat Le Brocq’s grandfather Arthur Harrison. The editorship of the newspaper carried on down the family line with his son Arthur Guiton Harrison taking on the role in 1944.
These were trying times for the Evening Post with the Harrisons faced with censorship of the newspaper during the German Occupation. They continued with the business letting islanders know when German propaganda was published by not correcting the English.
Following back the Guiton line, Walter was the son of John Marett Guiton. In the 1850s, when he was in his early 20s, he was placed in debtor’s prison because he had become bankrupt. He recovered well from this experience, eventually having nine children.
Refugees
The first Guiton to come to Jersey was Jurat Le Brocq’s 5x great-grandfather, Jean Guiton. He was born in France and married Marie Simoneau in St Helier on 8 April 1758.
They are noted in the parish register as being ‘refugees’ and there is a suggestion that they were Huguenots who had to flee France after persecution. This is further borne out by the fact that from then until the present day the Guitons have had close links to the Methodist Church, with regular bequests and mentions in wills and contracts.
The Harrison line of the family comes from the Isle of Man. Arthur came to the Island with his sister Elizabeth in the late 1890s.
The Harrison family is descended from the aristocracy. Jurat Le Brocq’s 4x great-grandfather was Richard Harrison, who married Catherine Radcliffe in 1779. The Radcliffes have been traced back to Sir Thomas Stanley, who was Earl of Derby in the 15th century.
Following this line even further back, the family can be tracked through the Stanley family as far back as Edward Longshanks, King of England, Henry III, John I and Henry II, all the way back to William the Conqueror
