Amelia Laura Rowland (nee Marley) and her husband Richard Samuel West Rowland, the Bailiff’s grandfather and grandmother.

THE Marley family roots can also be traced back to the Westcountry – in this case to the hamlet of Bampton, near Tiverton in north Devon. John Marley was born there in 1748 and on 20 July 1783 married Sarah Brewer, also from Bampton.

Their son James Brewer Marley was born there in 1792 and he was to become a tailor and move to Guernsey. He was married more than once.

He and Charlotte Marley (nee Head) were to have many children including Edward, born in 1850, who was Geoffrey’s paternal great-grandfather.

In a census of 1851 he is described as being seven months old. No place or date of birth has been tracked down but in those days there was no legal compulsion in Guernsey to record a birth at the Greffe.

Throughout his life he was formally known as Edward and occasionally, in the family, as Nappy.

In his 1930s death certificate, he was recorded as Napolean George Edward Brewer Marley.

The Bailiff said that the family had always been amused and did not know if he was named after Bonaparte the French emperor, and if so why, but apparently in France it was a common Christian name.

Edward was the father of Amelia Marley, the Bailiff’s grandmother.

Edward married Elizabeth Solway in 1873. She was the daughter of Henry Solway, son of John and of Mary Broome, who was the daughter of George.

Geoffrey’s grandmother Lil Marley was born in Guernsey in December 1879.

The family lived at La Saline and subsequently Les Sauvagees.

After being widowed in 1929, Lil never remarried and died aged 92.

She remained in the same house in Les Amballes, where she had made her home with her husband, except for five years of the German Occupation when, as a single person occupying a house with several bedrooms, the occupying forces required her to leave and took over her home.

Distressed, she was allocated alternative accommodation in a flat in a larger house not far from her home and with a distant view of her own back garden.

‘Until her death she never forgave the German forces for the enforced move, nor for chopping up cherished pieces of furniture which she and husband Sam had acquired during their marriage,’ said her grandson. ‘It was used by German officers as firewood.’

She also never forgave them for denying her the opportunity to be present at her son Percy’s wedding in Stockport.

Advance notice of the wedding was conveyed by Muriel and Percy by Red Cross message, delivery time being about three months, as islanders well recall.

‘Living nearby, I often visited her after school and used to ask her to tell me stories about life during the Occupation years.

‘When I was seven or eight I can remember her in tears recounting the awful treatment of slave labourers whom she saw being escorted to work, ill-clad and with ragged shoes, under guard through the streets.

‘I do not know how she would have felt about the efforts that I have readily supported to reconcile the people of Guernsey with the people of Biberach, where so many Guernsey residents, in breach of international law, had been deported and interned.’

While he vigorously supports reconciliation, he often speculates about what his grandmother would have thought.

‘Had she been alive today, I hope she would have mellowed in her forthright attitude, but I’m uncertain whether that would indeed have been the case and would fully respect her right to dissent from my enthusiasm, as a post-war baby, for reconciliation.

Lil was one of 10 children. Brothers Thomas and Edgar, had emigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia, but most brothers and sisters remained in Guernsey.

A host of Marleys descended from James Brewer Marley are now spread over many parishes across the island.

Sadly Elsie, Lil’s niece, died in the Cloud of Iona air tragedy off the south coast of Jersey in July 1936.

Many Marleys have excelled in sport over the years. Harry, one of Lil’s nephews, was a scratch golfer. After the Liberation, he left for the United States and lived in Roanoke, Virginia, the hometown of his wife, Martha.

Over the years, Percy and Geoffrey kept in close contact with Harry. Geoffrey was delighted when he returned to the island, aged 96, to be present at his installation as Bailiff in 2005. It proved to be his last visit as he died some months later.

Efforts have been made by one member of the Marley family to trace the family’s origin.

William de Merle was a Norman baron living in the north of England in 1201.

Hugh de Merlay, the King’s Chaplain, in the 1200s, owned property in Falaise, Normandy.

Some Marleys in England trace their ancestry back to William de Merle and Hugh de Merlay and it is known that Marleys were living in the 1500s in County Durham. Much work remains to be done if a link to the Guernsey Marleys is to be established.