Qualla: Lundy https://qualla.com/lundy en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Lundy https://qualla.com/lundy Lundy: Introduction https://qualla.com/lundy/ Lundy was, for a single month in 1929, a country with its own money. The owner, Martin Coles Harman, had printed coins denominated in Puffins and Half Puffins, equivalent in stated value to the British penny and halfpenny. He intended them for use on his island and nowhere else. The British government took a dim view. Harman was prosecuted under the Coinage Act of 1870 and fined five pounds plus costs at Devon magistrates' court in April 1930. He appealed all the way to the King's Bench Division. He lost. The coins were withdrawn and immediately became collectors' items, which is what they remain today. The island is older than its strange money, of course. Three miles long, half a mile wide, all granite — a slab of Palaeocene rock sitting nineteen kilometres off the Devon coast, in the channel between England and Wales.

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/e/lundy-wp/gche-lundy-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lundy: Puffin Island https://qualla.com/lundy/ The name itself is Norse: from Old Norse lundi, meaning puffin. Three islands in Iceland are called Lundey for the same reason. The Orkneyinga saga calls Lundy by its current name in the twelfth century. The puffins are still here, though only just — a colony that crashed to a ha...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/e/lundy-wp/gche-lundy-puffin-island.mp3 0:06 2 full Lundy: The Marisco Pirate State https://qualla.com/lundy/ In 1235 William de Marisco was implicated in the murder of Henry Clement, a royal messenger of Henry III. Three years later, an attempt was made to assassinate the king himself. The would-be assassin confessed under interrogation that he was an agent of the Marisco family. Willia...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/e/lundy-wp/gche-lundy-the-marisco-pirate-state.mp3 0:06 3 full Lundy: The Barbary Pirates https://qualla.com/lundy/ In 1627 a band of Barbary corsairs from the Republic of Salé, in what is now Morocco, occupied Lundy and held it for five years. Their commander was a Dutch convert to Islam named Jan Janszoon. They flew an Ottoman flag from the island. From this base they ran slaving raids along...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/e/lundy-wp/gche-lundy-the-barbary-pirates.mp3 0:06 4 full Lundy: Thomas Benson and the Convicts https://qualla.com/lundy/ Thomas Benson was a Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1747 and Sheriff of Devon — a respectable man, on paper. He leased Lundy from the Earl Gower and contracted with the government to transport a shipload of convicts to Virginia. Instead, Benson diverted the ship to Lundy a...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/e/lundy-wp/gche-lundy-thomas-benson-and-the-convicts.mp3 0:06 5 full Lundy: The Heinkels https://qualla.com/lundy/ Two German Heinkel He 111 bombers crash-landed on Lundy during the Second World War. The first was on the 3rd of March 1941: the entire crew survived and was taken prisoner. The second was on the 1st of April 1941: the pilot was killed and the other crew members were captured. Th...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/e/lundy-wp/gche-lundy-the-heinkels.mp3 0:06 6 full Lundy: The Landmark Trust https://qualla.com/lundy/ Martin Harman's son Albion died in 1968. The family put Lundy up for sale in 1969. Jack Hayward, a British millionaire who had made his money in transportation and property in the Bahamas, bought it for one hundred and fifty thousand pounds and immediately gave it to the National...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/h/e/lundy-wp/gche-lundy-the-landmark-trust.mp3 0:06 7 full