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It was this very bible that belonged to and was used in many sermons by the ‘Rt. Rev. Charles Leonard Thornton-Duesbury’, and for those that might of heard of the name but could not exactly pin point it, he was the Lord Bishop of the Sodor and Man between 1925 and 1928 when he passed away.

The Bible is actually called ‘The Imperial Family Bible‘ and this one was printed in 1844 by the famous Bible printers of the day ‘Blackie and Son, Glasgow’. and includes engravings from the very best engravers of this time, such as William Miller and Henry Cook. There are many copies of the two volume edition which is dated 1846, but the 1844 version was released as a single version, with a very small print run of around 500 copies, and this copy is remarkably well preserved with very little discolouration and the binding is solid even though it shows a bit of wear, which you would expect from a book that has been used quite a bit throughout the years. I have come across a few versions of this book, but none in this condition and none with this history.

It has an inscription  in the front pages from his wife, ‘Ethel Nixon Thornton-Duesbury’ which is:

Presented to

The congregation of St. Marks Sodor and Man

In Remembrance of the late Lord Bishop

Charles Thornton-Duesbury

From his wife

1928

Charles Leonard Thornton-Duesbury was born on the Isle of Man in Glen Helen in 1867 and was the son of the late Captain W. Thornton-Duesbury, of Ballacosnahan, Patrick, and a brother of Mr. Hugh Thornton-Duesbury, of Ballaveare, Port Soderick.

He was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and after being ordained at St. Paul’s Cathedral, held a curacy at St. George’s-in-the-East, London-where one of his fellow-curates was the Rev. R. D. Kermode, who was the vicar of Lezayre here in the Isle of Man.

Prior to taking up holy orders, he was for a number of years a lay worker at St. George’s, Douglas.

He lived for a while at St. Mark’s in Barrow upon Furness; St. Peter’s in Islington ; Leyton in Essex and also in Marylebone before he became the Bishop of Sodor and Man (which use to be the term for the Diocese of the Isle of Man).

Besides being a gifted preacher, he had a marked capacity for organisation ; he was chairman of the Sunday School Institute, chairman of the Home Committee of the Church Missionary Society, and vice-chairman of the Church of England Temperance Society in the London diocese, He was unmistakably an Evangelical.

He is well-remembered in the Isle of Man as a fine exponent of Rugby football.

He died, aged 61 on the 11th March 1928 leaving a son ‘Julian Percy Thornton-Duesbury’ who was the staunchly evangelical Master of St. Peters College, Oxford, and the principal of Whycliffe Hall, he also left a daughter called ‘Jean Constance Thornton-Duesbury‘ who moved back to the Isle of Man in 1939 and who was a very prominent member of the House of Keys between 1966 and 1976, she passed away late November 1997.

I have come across, this very edition on the internet for over £1700, and that is without the history that this one has… Though I am not looking for that much for this one.

My issue with Sky is that unlike most people out there, we had to purchase the units including the dish and installation ourselves, mainly because the local Sky installers either wanted stupid money to install a new dish where we we, or that they would not do it without installing scaffolding and a site survey along with health and survey etc, basically all crap and any excuss to up the bill and make more money out of us, especially as we had very easy access to a flat roof which has proven perfect for the dish which in the end we had purchased ourselves and installed with very little hassles, thanks to a local friend of ours. I then purchased 2 Sky boxes, a Sky plus box at £175 and a normal Sky Digibox at £80 from the local Sky shop, the same shop that would not have installed the system without a site survey, etc. We had to tell them that the units were replacements else they would not have sold them to us.

All is well until 6 months later when the Digibox died! called the sky shop and there comment was to call Sky as the warranty for the box was with them and log a call so that the unit will be swapped out ‘Free of Charge’! BUT, the problems start here.

Sky could not fit in a call out for over 2 weeks! I would not have really mattered about this, but they said that I would have to have an engineer call out to check the system over, and because Sky had not installed the system then I would have to pay not only for the visit but also for the replacement Digibox, and this is where I feel really pissed off!

Having been a customer with Sky TV for many years, either personally or via the partners account, you would have thought Sky would give us a bit more lee-way, and especially as I had to purchase the units myself whereas most of the people in the UK got there Sky installed for around £40, and especially since the move to Free-View they have been offering Sky Plus for the same cost. but no, because I had got the system installed by myself and also because I had purchased the units myself, even though it was Sky that would not supply the units which left me with no choice but to purchase the units myself, the Sky think it is fair to ripp me off again by charging me yet more money….

So I have now canceled my Sky subscription for both units, I was happy to keep the Sky Plus box going, but they refused to just cancel the Sky Digibox off the contract as I had only had this contract for less than a year, as we had only just moved to this address, they don’t care that you have been with Sky TV for many years, nor that you have had to purchase your own equipment, and they also don’t care about customer services…

Basically if you are thinking of installing Sky in the Isle of Man, don’t! The local installers are a bunch of ripp-off merchants and are out to scam you out of anything that they can, go Free-View, it is cheaper and so much less aggro, Sky have gone down-hill big time, and hopefully they will maybe work out that they are turning people away, and with Free-View costing around £20 a box, instead of the £45 per month, then it’s their loss…