Archive pictures of the week - 2015

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Archive pictures of the week - 2015


11 January

19th century advertisements

Among the most fascinating insights into what life was like in Jersey 150 or more years ago is given by the advertisements for island businesses which appeared in the almancs published annually by the leading newspapers of the time. Some were in French, some in English. Many are of particular interest to family historians because these, businesses, most of them small, were frequently named after their owners or founders, or carried the name of the proprietor. We have obtained several hundred of these advertisements and are starting to add them to our family pages, providing another element in addition to baptism listings, links to family trees and family histories, and articles about the houses the families owned. The advertisement featured here was published in the Nouvelle Chronique Almanac in 1880 by J U Harper, an engineer based in Lower Bath Street, who described himself as an 'agent for machines in general' and also a coppersmith. More advertisements of this nature will be added to family pages in the coming weeks, and also to the pages for the streets in which they were located, gradually building up a picture of the commercial life of St Helier in the mid to late 19th century.

18 January 2015

From ss to HMS

Experts on Channel Island maritime history will recognise this vessel as the ss Lynx, one of three ships built by Lairds of Birkenhead in 1889 for the Great Western Railway's newly acquired Channel Island services. Most of the passenger accommodation was removed in 1910 after which she was operated as a cargo vessel, but she then went on to serve as minesweeper HMS Lynn in the Mediterranean during World War I and was finally broken up after 36 year’s service. This photograph was taken during the war.

25 Jaunary 2015

Greve de Lecq Fair - 1895

This picture of a fair at Greve de Lecq in 1895, a smaller version of which has been in Jerripedia for some time, was published on 24 January by the Jersey Evening Post as the centre-spread of a 16-page supplement containing photographs from the collection of La Société Jersiaise taken during the 1890s. That was the first decade of the life of Jersey's only surviving newspaper, which celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2015. As well as announcing that pictures from each decade of its history will be published in supplements throughout the year, the newspaper also made the exciting annoucement that it is donating its entire photographic archive to the public of Jersey, to be held by Jersey Archive, which has plans to catalogue it, scan the 1.5 million images and put them online for public access. This news was particularly welcomed by Jerripedia editor Mike Bisson, who had the same idea when he was managing director of the newspaper in 1995, but at the time the purpose-built building which now houses the Archive was still five years from completion and there were insufficient resources available to handle such a project. 'I am glad that at last this wonderful collection of images covering the last century will be accessible by the public', said Mike, 'but I just hope that the funds are available to do it properly, and that somehow the existing image collections of Jersey Archive and La Societe, which are only partly accessible to the public through websites which appear to have been designed for professional archivists and are far from user friendly for the public at large, can be brought together online with the JEP pictures.

1 February

On the beach

We have two pictures of West Park this week, taken two years apart in the first decade of the 20th century. This picture, taken in 1904, shows just how popular the beach at West Park was at the time. This was an era when there were no motor cars in the island, and no buses to jump on to leave the town and visit country bays, so the closest beaches to the town centre at Havre des Pas and West Park were enormously popular with town residents. The picture below shows the view of West Park looking down from Westmount. The railway line which ran alongside the promenade can be clearly seen. The Grand Hotel is on the left, and in the background, with no late 20th century land reclamation schemes to block the view is the long arm of the Albert Pier, which was the outer pier of the harbour at the time

8 February 2015

St Brelade’s Bay development

Two pictures of St Brelade’s Bay this week, and although the gap between when they were taken is only about 30 years, the change in the bay has been dramatic. The picture above probably dates from the first decade of the 20th century, and at this stage, although Jersey was already building a reputation as a holiday island, visitors had still not discovered the lovely golden sands of St Brelade’s Bay. There were few buildings and the appearance of the bay was much as any of the other small villages dotted around the island. Move forward about 30 years and the view of the same stretch of the bay from the opposite direction shows a proliferation of houses on the slopes above the bay, and substantial tourism development on the coastline. On the beach to the left we see organised sports in progress with a large crowd watching the start of a race, probably involving holdaymakers staying at one of the large hotels which were so busy in the pre-war years.

15 February

Prisoner of war's card

Exactly 100 years ago a prisoner-of-war camp was being constructed on the sand dunes in St Ouen's Bay to house Germans captured in the early months of the Great War. By March 1915 the camp started to receive its first prisoners, and among them was Otto Sommerfeld, who sent this postcard on 5 May to his sister-in-law, Margarete Liebig, who lived in Wilhelmshaven

22 February 2015

La Pulente

Earlier this month we featured two photographs of St Brelade’s Bay, showing the large-scale development which took place there in the early 20th century. This week we have two photographs of St Ouen’s Bay, taken from the southern La Pulente end, both in late 1920s or early 1930s. It is clear that this bay on the island’s west coast escaped the major tourism development seen at St Brelade. Apart from a few houses, all that appeared in the bay in the inter-war years, mainly towards the northern end, was a scattering of wooden chalets used for picnics and weekend parties (inset in lower picture). Most of these were demolished by the occupying German forces in the 1940s, and the few which survived or were replaced after the Liberation were eventually also to disappear as post-war planning regulations protected the open space along the length of the bay.

1 March

Shopping precinct

St Helier had no traffic-free streets until the late 1960s, when King Street, above, became the first pedestrian precinct, followed soon after by Queen Street, below. Jersey Tourism took the opportunity to commission these photographs to illustrate promotional glossy brochures to promote conference business in the island. Many of the buildings at the bottom end of King Street shown in the photograph had remained relatively unchanged, at least externally, and particularly above the ground floors, since they were built in the 19th century, but a long stretch of Queen Street, shown in the photograph, was rebuilt in the 1960s

8 March

Gorey Harbour, 1860s

We are always delighted to receive pictures for inclusion in the site from Jerripedia users all over the world. We were particularly pleased this week to learn about a substantial collection owned by an American collector of postcards and photographs. His collection is said to be one of the world's largest, and since his marriage a few years back to a Jerseywoman, he has been adding historical images of her own island. He has sent us a batch of old photographs and postcards for adding to our site, and promised a lot more to come. There are many we have never seen before, including this early photograph of Gorey Harbour, full of boats from the oyster fishing fleet which operated from there in the mid-19th century. The industry was in terminal decline by the end of the 1860s, soon to be replaced along the Gorey shoreline by boat building yards, so it is likely that this photograph was taken in the 1860s, making it one of the earliest in existence of an outdoor Jersey scene, and perhaps the earliest surviving picture of the much-photographed Mont Orgueil Castle. Neither we nor the picture's owner know exactly when it was taken, nor who the photographer was, but there is a good chance that it was taken in the early 1860s by Henry Mullins, whose picture of Vinchelez from the same time has been on this site for nearly two years. If any Jerripedia users can help us pinpoint the date of the image more accurately we would be pleased to hear from them. We have more exciting images of the Gorey coastline to add to Jerripedia in the near future. They will form part of a new section of the site charting coastal developments in the island over the centuries.

15 March

1930s holidays

We have received an amazing variety of historical photographs of the island in the past few weeks. These images, sent by a number of Jerripedia supporters, probably constitute the single largest and most diverse influx since the site was founded. So we have no hesitation in using three of them as feature pictures this week. There is a common theme, of Jersey tourism in the 1930s. This was an era when the island's holiday industry was starting to boom. With the deprivations of the Great War years and the depression of the '20s now starting to fade into the distance, and fast ferry links and the advent of air services making the island more accessible than ever, holidaymakers started to flood in. And few managed to escape the mandatory group photograph outside the hotel or guest house where they were staying. Here we have a group at the Sarum House Hotel in 1931, and note how well dressed they were. Some wearing very smart casual clothes, others in formal suits. Even the young lad in the front row is wearing a suit with double-breasted jacket, although he has managed to avoid adding a tie. The picture below is of the Royal Yacht Hotel cocktail bar, one of 'the' places to be seen at the time. Unfortunately we do not know the name of the cheery barman.
Our third picture shows another happy group of holidaymakers, this time from 1937, and staying at Maison Gorey Private Hotel. And a smart bunch they are, too, all the gentlemen wearing suits or jackets, although open-necked shirts now seem to be de rigeur, with only one gentleman on the left of the front row accompanying his striped blazer with a tie. But look at the smart shoes and white socks, and the ladies' fashionable long skirts!

22 March

Shipyards

Today the word 'shipyard' conjures up images of tower cranes, dry docks, giant slipways, and thousands of workers assembling vessels the length of several football pitches. Although Jersey was one of the main shipbuilding centres in the British Isles in the 19th century, it was on a somewhat different scale. Wooden vessels were assembled on stocks on the shoreline, just below the high water mark so that, once construction was complete, the new ship could be slid into the water on a high spring tide and, if necessary, taken to St Helier Harbour or Gorey Pier for final fitting out. The upper of this week's two feature pictures shows just what an open-air business shipbuilding at Gorey was at the time. The island's largest shipyard, Le Masurier's at West Park, was a more substantial undertaking, and vessels were constructed there protected by large open-sided sheds.

7 May

Grosnez Castle

This delightful picture of the entrance to the ruined Grosnez Castle was taken in 1923. Apart from that, we regret that we have no further information

16 May

View from South Hill

This picture of St Helier Harbour and Elizabeth Castle beyond, viewed from South Hill, was painted by renowned Jersey artist Philip Ouless in 1868. Ouless was better known for his commissioned paintings of Jersey-based and built ships, but he also recorded views of the island in the mid-19th century which form important historical records of the Victorian era

28 May

Battle of Flowers

Every time we receive a new batch of pictures of the Jersey Battle of Flowers we never cease to be amazed at how many of them, over 100 years old, are not yet included in our extensived collection. This picture, of the 1909 Battle, is in superb condition and was among a new selection to be sent to us recently. It was probably taken by Albert Smith, although pictures survive of Battles in the first decade of the 20th century taken by various photographers who were active at the time. See our Jersey Battle of Flowers picture gallery for many other pictures from this era, and throughout the following 100-plus years

5 June

Liberation landing

This photograph was taken on board one of the first landing craft to arrive on 9 May 1945, liberating Jersey after five years of German Occupation. The craft beached between West Park and First Tower. The building in the right background was Brandy's Basketworks, and was demolished in the 1950s. The site remained empty for many years but plans for blocks of luxury flats were eventually approved, allowing a very prominent seaside location again to be put to good use

15 June

A cinema matinee

This photograph of a group of very smartly dressed schoolboys was taken before they attended a matinee performance at West's Cinema, in 1913 or early 1914. The photographer was Percival Dunham, widely acknowledged as Jersey's first photojournalist. We have recently added more than 65 images taken by Dunham to our page featuring his work for Jersey Illustrated Weekly and the Morning News in a career which was cut short when he enlisted for military service shortly after the outbreak of World War 1

25 June

St Aubin Hotel

What is today the Parish Hall of St Brelade, on the harbourside in Saint Aubin was built as a hotel, part of the terminus of the Jersey Western Railway. We have always known it as the Terminus Hotel, but this picture by Ernest Baudoux shows that at some stage, probably when it opened in 1871, it was known as St Christopher Family Hotel. The picture below, which has been in Jerripedia for some time, and is believed to date from the 1880s, shows that the orginal 'St Christopher' board on the left of the facade has been removed, and the board on the right has been changed from 'Family hotel' to 'Terminus Hotel'. The station opened in 1870 and eventually closed in 1936. The hotel bar was accessible direct from the platform and above it was a spacious balcony with a saloon and coffee rooms. To begin with the hotel was well patronised and attracted extra traffic for the railway, but its popularity was short-lived and it was running at a loss well before the closure of the railway itself. Baudoux, a Frenchman, was one of the most popular portrait photographers in Jersey in the 1870s and '80s, and took thousands of images, many of which survive. He was also keen to photograph island buildings and sold these images to islanders and tourists some years before the postcard was introducced to the island. We have just added a further selection of Baudoux photographs to our gallery and expanded his biography.
And just to add another hotel which had an original name which has long since been lost, the Victoria Hotel in St Peter's Valley, now known as the Vic in the Valley, started life as a private house with an adjoining country shop, and then became the Hotel de Jersey and Cafe Francais, which was its name when Ernest Baudoux took this photograph around the 1870s

2 July

Young ladies

Our fashion gallery contains a fascinating collection of pictures which illustrate the developments in women's and men's fashion over a centur and a half. Among the most striking is this image recently added to the gallery. The only information we have about the picture is that that the young ladies were Miss Makenny, Miss Amy, Mrs A Blatchford, M Hanley, Miss M le Feuvre, Miss J Boielle and Miss G Aldridge, but we do not know when the photograph was taken, where, nor who by. Can anyone help? Were they nurses, or perhaps chambermaids or servants in a large household, wearing uniform? It would be interesting to discover more about this photograph, which we suspect is well over 100 years old

9 July

Waverley Terrace school

In the 1880s, and later, Waverley Terrace in St Saviour's Road was home to what appears to have been a boarding school for boys. It is not clear whether they lived and were educated there as well. These were boys of secondary school age, possibly French. The school was active for a number of years and photographs of groups of boys outside the distinctive frontage with double steps are still found today. Some were taken by Ernest Baudoux, and later images by Tynan Brothers of Bath Street. This picture was taken by Ernest Baudoux in the 1870s or early 80s. Further research has revealed that Waverley Terrace was used in the 1880s by the Jesuit community which had taken over the former Imperial Hotel, which became Maison St Louis, and today is the Hotel de France. There was a chapel inside Waverley Terrace, which was clearly used as a school, almost certainly for French boarders
Students photographed outside Waverley Terrace in the later 1880s by Tynan Brothers

16 July

Queen Victoria landing

This picture of Queen Victoria arriving at St Helier Harbour is well known, having been printed as a postcard. Indeed, it has been in Jerripedia, albeit of an inferior quality, for nearly four years, and was chosen as our feature picture in January last year. What persuaded us to feature this copy was the handwritten names identifying two of the people in the picture - Millie and Esne, or possibly Elsie. The message written below the picture on the card was 'If you look long enough you might be able to see me there. I hope Auntie is all right again'. This was Queen Victoria's first visit to Jersey, not in 1849 as printed on the postcard, but in 1846. The second visit was in 1859. In 1846 the Queen landed on the Victoria Pier, which is shown here, whereas in 1859 the Royal party landed on the larger and more convenient Albert Pier, which had not been completed in 1846. Given that the postcard was probably printed in the first years of the 20th century, it is interesting to speculate how old the sender was then, nearly 60 years later - and how old was Auntie?

26 July

Corbiere globe

La Corbière, on the south-west corner of Jersey, was always a popular place to stop for carriages carrying tourists on outings around the coastline, or as a destination on the Jersey Western Railway. One of the attractions, in addition to the spectacular views of the cliffs, lighthouse and the sweeping sands of St Ouen's Bay, was a reflecting globe, which presented an entirely different view and appears in many photographs of the Victorian era.

5 August

Flying boat

The Cloud of Iona was one of the first aircraft to operate a regular service to Jersey, before flights from the beach at West Park were established. The flying boat operated between Jersey, Guernsey and nearby French coastal towns. It is believed that this photograph, by far the most evocative to emerge of the earliest days of commercial flying in the islands, was taken either in St Malo or Granville. The aircraft met a tragic end on 31 July 1936 when it crashed into the sea on a flight from Guernsey to Jersey, although the exact circumstances of the accident which took the lives of two crew and eight passengers remains a mystery to this day. Their bodies were eventually recovered from the sea drifting towards France and it was discovered that they had all drowned, suggesting that the aircraft had not crashed, but had landed in the sea and failed to take off again, eventually drifting on to rocks and breaking up.

13 August

Dance band

Surprisingly few pictures exist of pre-war and immediate post-war entertainers on stage in Jersey, probably because publicity pictures tended to be taken in outdoor locations and, long before the age of the smart phone, those attending performances did not have cameras with them, particularly not equipped with a flash. So this picture we were sent recently, taken at the Plaza ballroom in the late 1940s, of Jack Dale and his band, is particularly welcome. We are indebted to Mel Traynor who informs us that Jack Dale was a clarinet/saxophone player from Birmingham. He knows nothing about Jack Dale's band, but recalls that he played as a member of Benny Loban and his Music Weavers on the 1930 recording of L'imagine

20 August

1908 Battle of Flowers

It was highly appropriate that these three photographs of the 1908 Jersey Battle of Flowers should reach us a week ago, on the day of the 2015 event. Then, as now, the Battle was held on Victoria Avenue, and attracted a large crowd of islanders and holidaymakers. The Battle started as an event to celebrate the Coronation of Edward VII in 1902, and many photographs of the early events are still in circulation, often coming up on online auction sites. These three images of the 1908 event are new to Jerripedia, which already has some 160 photographs of the first decade of the Battle of Flowers in its picture gallery

27 August

Sorting office

This was the magnificent sorting office at the Halkett Place premises which were the headquarters of Jersey Post Office at the end of the 19th century and into the early years of the 20th. The picture cannot be dated exactly, but is believed to have been taken some time between 1890 and 1909. The Post Office moved from Halkett Place to more spacious premises in Broad Street, and later the mail sorting operation was rehoused in a former tobacco factory at Mont Millais.

2 September

Family outing

This picture is exactly 100 years old. It shows members of the extensive Samson family on an outing in St Peter's Valley in 1915. We have just added a new family page for this family, one of 26 extra families which have been given their own dedicated page, as our collection grows from just over 400 to a projected 600 by the end of the year. We have also added a substantial family tree for the Samsons, one of 26 new trees in the past week. As part of our autumn project to enhance the core Family research section of the site, we hope to see our collection of family trees grow from 1,600-plus to closer to 2,000 in the coming months. The Samson family came to Jersey from Saarland in Germany via St Malo in the 19th century, and ran an oil supply business from Bath Street in the days before houses were lit by electricity. We have a fascinating collection of further family photographs which will be added to Samson pages shortly

10 September

Gravestones

Our feature picture this week is of a gravestone in Almorah Cemetery, St Helier. We have chosen it to represent over 4,000 gravestone images which we are starting to add to our Family pages as part of a new project which will eventually see gravestone photographs from all the island's cemeteries added to the growing number of these pages. This monument marks the grave of members of the Beghin family, who founded the boot and shoe store in King Street which still bears their name today. For more information please see our Jerripedia gravestone image collection page. As part of this project we are expanding the number of family pages from some 425 to over 600, and adding many more family trees to the site, which should bring the total available to researchers close to 2,000 in the weeks to come. This is a massive new project for the Jerripedia team and it is going to take us several months to complete the first phase. We will follow this by creating indexes for each cemetery, and by adding pages of gravestones for families which do not feature in our selection of the most important for those researching their ancestry in Jersey. Please bear with us while we work through the time-consuming processes required to bring these gravestone images on to the site

20 September

Forties fashion

We receive a wide variety of pictures at Jerripedia, and the majority of them find their way into our pages, although many go direct to existing galleries and there are far too many of these to be able to highligh their arrival. Our feature picture this week deserves more. Sent to us by Tony Elkin, who was shown it by his elderly neighbour after a recent visit to Jersey, it was taken on the beach in St Brelade's Bay soon after the end of World War 2 - 70 years ago - when life began to return to normal. The clothes worn by the eight ladies instantly confirm the date as neither the 'thirties nor the 'fifties, but this intervening short post-war period, when fashion was just starting to become important again. And nowhere more than in Jersey, where five years of Occupation deprived islanders of new clothes, never mind any interest in how they looked.

26 September

Battle of Flowers

Pictures of the Jersey Battle of Flowers in its first decade are far from rare, but it is unusual to find a set of 17 of the same event on offer for sale together. This photograph, and the others on our new page dedicated to these pictures which came up for auction recently were taken on Victoria Avenue on 17 August 1911, at the tenth staging of the popular event. Unlike today, when the colours of millions of flowers on large motorised floats dominate the Battle, in its early days it was all about people (and horses) and a crowded, if sometimes chaotic, arena. These 1911 pictures were taken either by Albert Smith, or one of his employees. For pictures of other Jersey Battles of Flowers, see our gallery page

5 October

Family photograph

This photograph shows the Cudlipp family of The Limes, Mont à l'Abbé, and was probably taken around 1910. John George Cudlipp (1851-1931) who is pictured with his wife Louisa Esther Romeril (1851-1928) daughter of John (1822- ) and Mary Jane (1821- ), and nine of their ten children. John Cudlipp was born in St Saviour, the fifth child of James Cudlipp (1820-1893) and Mary Johnson (1818-1893), who came to Jersey from Devon. With John and Louisa are, we believe, Louisa Ellen (1880-1952), Florence Jane (1883- ), Ann Susanna Cudlipp (1884- ), John (1886- ), Agnes Mary Cudlipp (1889- ), Herbert Henry Cudlipp (1891-1919), Gertrude Alice (1891-1979), Ernest George (1894-1972) and Elsie Maud (1896-1975). All the children were born in St Peter, with the exception of Louisa Ellen, who we believe was born in London. We believe that the family member missing from the picture is Gordon William (1887-1976) who married Annie Fleury (1896-1995). We have chosen this as our feature picture this week, not only because it is a superb family portrait of the Edwardian era, but because the Cudlipp family is one of many we have recently added to our family pages, together with the new family tree. Our family pages now number over 600, with a few still to be completed, and the majority now contain images of family gravestones from our new collection of over 5,000. Nearly 3,000 of these have been added to the site and we are working hard to process those that remain

12 October

Quarry

This superb picture of La Moye Quarry has been on our waiting list for our feature picture slot for some time. It is a superb picture of what, in its day, was the most important quarry in the island. Indeed, so important was this quarry in the south-west corner of the island, close to La Corbière, that it was the principal reason for the narrow-gauge extension of the Jersey Western Railway west from its previous terminus at Saint Aubin in 1884. It was not until 1898 that the line finally reached La Corbiere, where the lighthouse had been constructed in 1873-4. The La Moye extension was created 14 years after the railway reached St Aubin. It was primarily used by workers from the quarry, although it was a public station. This photograph, by Ernest Baudoux, was taken some time in the 1870s, and it can be seen that the quarry had internal railway lines for the movement of stone in horse-drawn trucks.

17 October

1907 entertainment

The Edwardian era was one of the peak times for public entertainment in Jersey, brought to a sudden halt by the advent of war in 1914. But at the time this picture was taken in 1907, with no prospect of a global conflict, Jersey's economy was booming and, in the absence of television, and with the cinema yet to arrive (that happened in 1900), live public entertainment was much in demand, and there was a steady flow of performers to appear at a number of venues, including the Olympia on the Esplanade. This superb photograph by Hamilton Toovey shows ventriloquist John Warren. Unfortunately we do not know the name of his best friend, but weren't they smartly dressed?

25 October

Gorey

Mont Orgueil Castle and Gorey Harbour must have been photographed from this angle tens of thousands of times over the years, and our own collection is not short of similar views. However, we particularly like this one, which has recently been sent to us, because it shows the cotils in the foreground, from which the earliest Jersey Royal new potatoes are still harvested every year, albeit that the space devoted to horticulture has diminished with the construction of more houses . We do not have a date for the image, but it is undoubtedly from the 19th century. Perhaps the large two-masted vessel in the harbour was constructed in one of the Gorey or St Catherine shipyards. Perhaps some of the smaller vessels are remnants of the oyster fishing fleet which used to operate out of the harbour. So much has changed in the foreground, but the castle still stands proudly on the hill overlooking the harbour and the line of quayside properties is much as it was a century or more ago

1 November

Who owned this shop?

We had several pictures in the queue for this week's feature picture slot, and then the one above arrived, pushing all the others back at least another week. This was Clement Mallet's fruit and veg shop in Conway Street just before the end of the 19th century, or possibly just into the 20th. Or so we were told. The picture shows the business to be owned by C Mallet, but was it in Conway Street, and which C Mallet ran the shop? It was not the Clement Mallet (1874-1963) that our informant suggests, because a check of census returns shows that this Clement, the son of Philippe and Mary Ann Le Couteur, originally of St Lawrence, was an apprentice carpenter and then a coachbuilder. The 1891 census shows him at the age of 16 as a carpenter, and ten years later he was living in Trinity with his parents, and by then a coachbuilder. This was still his trade when he was living at Town Mills in 1911 with his wife Ann Mary Le Luan (1886-1947) and children Gladys Stella, Clarence Clifford, Archibald Percy, and Evelyn Flora, the latter born a few weeks after the census. This is a superb quality photograph, and while we had no reason to doubt the location or the rough date we were given with it, we were determined to make it our feature picture, so long as we could establish more details about it. Our suspicion that if the shop was in Conway Street, it made the corner with Cross Street, was confirmed when we were able to find the picture below online. This picture of Mr Mallet's Central Market premises confirmed the Conway Street address as No 5, which is indeed on the corner with Cross Street, and also indicated that Mr Mallet clearly had a substantial business, with wholesale premises in nearby Commercial Street. But the picture below throws up further anomalies. We hoped that the telephone number would identify Mr Mallet, but the 1901 Jersey directory lists 73 as belonging to C Le Masurier at Commercial Street. So were these pictures taken some time after 1901, and had Mr Mallet acquired Mr Le Masurier's business by then? The search is complicated by our suspicion that Mr Mallet and his family did not live above any of the commercial premises, so cannot be identified from census returns. We are still hunting for clues, but in the meantime we hope you enjoy these pictures of a business run by a patriotic Jerseyman, who exhorted his customers to buy Empire produce. Further research since these pictures appeared as Pictures of the Week, and information supplied to us, suggests that they were taken considerably later than the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries, as was suggested to us. 5 Conway Street/Cross Street was purchased by Clement Mallet from Harry Leopold Marks and Arthur Robin Riches on 14 August 1923 for £822 10s. Clement was dead by October 1963 as he left a life interest of his “shop property with dwelling accommodation above and known as 5 Conway Street” to his daughter Gladys Grandin and her husband Philip with the reversionary ownership to his son Clarence Clifford Mallet. The property is now the new public conveniences belonging to the Parish of St Helier. Clement also owned 3 Conway Street, which he sold to the Parish of St Helier in 1930, retaining Number 5. He had bought 3 Conway Street on 26 January 1924 from a Mrs Ethel Pugsley, only some five months after buying number 5. We believe that the large painted panel on the gable end was painted on part of 3 Conway Street. In other pictures of the Mallets' market shop well into the 20th century show it looking older than in the picture here, leading us to believe that both these photographs were taken in the 1930s, not the 1900s.

8 November

Gorey hotel mystery

Another mystery to solve this week. We know the location, we think we know the owners, and we have a date, but do they match? Almost certainly not! Carrel's Temperance Hotel was one of a row of tearooms, cafes and hotels along Gorey Pier, and opened some time after the extension of the Jersey Eastern Railway to the harbour in 1891.

Anc15Carrel'sTemperanceHotel.jpg

Private house

As the photograph on the left below, taken in 1888, shows, it was previously a private house. In the 1891 census it is shown as occupied by 45-year-old widow Amelia Le Mettez, from France, described as a hotel keeper, and her four children, two boarders and a servant. The Jerripedia contributor who sent us the main picture says that it was taken in about 1903 and shows Mary Jane Carrel, the daughter of Philip John Carrel and his wife Jane Mary, nee Le Seelleur. However, immediately to the right of the property there is a date which appears to be 1906, although it is difficult to read through the street light. The 1901 census names the premises as Castle Temperance Hotel (not Carrel's, as we originally thought) and the head of houshold is 'grocer/shopkeeper' Charles Lewis.

Philip and Jane Carrel are shown living in Les Mars House, Faldouet, but their son Philip, a carpenter, and his wife Elizabeth are shown living a little further down the pier in Exeter House, the other side of Nelson House, the hotel's neighbouring property. The 1911 census shows both Philip snr and his son living on Gorey Pier and the father is described as a 'shipbuilder', as he was in earlier censuses living elsewhere in St Martin. The properties along Gorey Pier are not numbered or otherwise identified in the 1911 census returns but they appear to follow in sequence from the land end, which places Philip John Carrell and his family in the building which had housed (perhaps still housed) the Temperance Hotel, but Philip John is still described as a boat builder and employer, working from home.

No trade is shown for his wife Jane Mary or their daughter Mary Jane, who, aged 26, was still single and living with her parents. Philip jnr and his family are in the next census document, before Nelson House, which is identified as such, so they must also have been living in the same premises as his father. But nobody in either houshold is shown to be involved in running the hotel, and we cannot say exactly what connection the Carrel family had with the hotel named after them, nor exactly when this photograph was taken.

Further information

Further information received since this picture appeared has revealed that Philippe Carrel did not buy the property until 1905. He bought it from Francis John Cantell on 30 September that year. He left it to his son Thomas Edwin Carrel in his will, written in 1931 and registered in December 1938. Today the property is occupied by the Seascale Hotel and further pictures we have unearthed in our Gorey album show that at some point - before 1931 - it changed to Carrel's Seascale Cafe.

By the time Thomas Carrel sold the property in June 1955 it was described as the 'Seascale Hotel, formerly Seascale Cafe'. All this new information suggests that the Temperance Hotel was established by the Carrels before they bought the premises, so perhaps it was leased by Philippe to be run by his wife and daughter.

Lewis family bankruptcy

The Lewis family were not so successful. Mr and Mrs Lewis went bankrupt in 1902/3 and their property Mont Orgueil House reverted to its previous owner, George Thomas Bryant. Charles Henry Lewis had bought the property in October 1897 from Bryant but then sold it on to his wife, Jane Eliza Lewis nee Arthur, on 31 December 1902, for reasons which were not clear, and it seemed quite an odd transaction. On reading the consideration clause of that contract, Charles seems to have got into arrears with his payment of the rente interest due from his earlier purchase. Jane was required to make that arrears payment (£25 2s 6d) as part of the deal, as well as pay her husband £89 14s 5 cash and take on the liability of annual interest due on rente to the capital value of £354 7s 6d. However, by September 1903 her real property was adjudged renounced by Order of the Royal Court and a degrèvement of both her real property and that of Charles was concluded on 24 October 1903, with Mont Orgueil House thereby being returned to the ownership of Bryant. It looks as if she couldn’t keep up with the repayment schedule, as was the case with Charles before her.

So by the time of the 1901 census they already owned Mont Orgueil House, but were living at and running the Temperance Hotel next-door but one. By 1903 they had disappeared from the scene and the Carrel family owned, and were presumably running, what had become their Temperance Hotel</div>

16 November

Young ladies at the Militia camp

This week's feature picture is a simple one - no property mysteries like we have had for the past two weeks. It shows three pretty young ladies wielding rifles? What on earth was going on? The answer lies in the ropes attached to stakes between their legs. This photograph was undoubtedly taken in front of a tent at a Militia camp, probably in the first decade of the 20th century. It was standard practice for each camp to stage an open day when wives and other family members were invited to visit and see what their menfolk were doing at their annual camp. The quality of the outfits these young ladies were wearing leads us to suspect that they were the daughters of officers and they were clearly delighted to pose with their fathers' rifles, or those borrowed from other soldiers. The quality of the picture suggests that it was not a family snapshot but was taken by one of the professional photographers who made good money out of taking commemorative pictures at these camps, which were held either on the slopes outside Fort Regent or at Les Quennevais in the west of the island.

23 November

Pomme d'Or Hotel staff

This picture of staff at the Pomme d'Or Hotel in Jersey was taken in the 1930s, not long before the Germans invaded the island and requisitioned the hotel for their naval headquarters. The young lad in the centre of the group is Bernard (Bernie) Mc Dermott, who was born in 1924, the eighth child of Henry Laurence and Emily Theresa Mc Dermott, nee Le Lievre, and the grandson of Laurence (1847- ) who came to Jersey from Dundalk, Ireland, in 1883, shortly after his marriage to Margaret O'Keeffe. Henry Laurence died in Jersey during the Occupation, but his wife lived until she was 90, dying in 1981. Bernie married Monica Pearl Vibert in the early 1960s and they had one daughter, Donna. Unfortunately we have no details about any of the other Pomme d'Or staff members in the photograph.

30 November

Weighbridge

At first glance this picture looks much like so many which have been taken over the years of the Weighbridge, looking down from Fort Regent or Pier Road, but look at it closely and there are some features which date it to early 1890, not the 1880s as it was described when sent to us recently. The reason we can be so certain is that the Weighbridge Garden has recently been laid out in the foreground, but still has a flagpole at its centre, not the statue of Queen Victoria, which replaced it in September of that year. The statue was commissioned and the gardens which would surround it for 86 years were created to celebrate the Queen's golden jubilee, but clearly the States were no better at planning things in the late 19th century than they are now, because it was unveiled three years after the anniversary. Also clearly visible in the picture are the railway terminus in the centre, the Westaway Memorial (long since removed to the Victoria Pier) between the terminus and the gardens, and to its left, the new Weighbridge, opened in 1877 to replace the original, which stood close to the side of the Southampton Hotel.

7 December

Airport plans

This is the map which accompanied the proposition to the States in February 1935 for the construction of an airport in St Peter. At the time the beach at West Park was being used as a temporary airport as the new method of travelling between the island and England started growing rapidly in popularity. The proposal to build a proper airport was highly controversial, not least because it would swallow up large tracts of farmland in St Peter. There were also many who doubted the financial arguments for building an airport with public money. The scheme was approved and just over two years later the new airport was built and functioning.

14 December

Visitez Jersey!

This postcard promoting travel to Jersey from France in 1904 has been in our Tourism picture gallery since earlier this year, but we did not know it was part of a set. The picture we received earlier this year had no number before the caption beneath it, whereas these are numbered 1, 4, 5 and 6. We will be keeping an eye out for numbers 2 and 3! Just these four makie a delightful set, evoking the days when French ports in Normandy and Brittany were reached by the railway and easy connections with boats to Gorey or St Helier could be made. The caption to the large picture above reads "I've got plenty of time to have a little snooze" and the three below: "Lily on her travels: Is this where I leave for Paris?", "Travelling gives you an appetite" and "Hey, is that my train leaving over there". If anybody has copies of the missing cards, please send them to us!

28 December

Ladies only!

This is unmistakably Havre des Pas, but something's missing! This picture was taken before the swimming pool complex was built and linked to the shore with a bridge on trestles. All we have here is a platform giving direct access to the water at high tide. But only for ladies, because in the Victorian era, as sea bathing became popular, swimmers either had to change in bathing huts wheeled down to the water's edge and take to the water well covered by their ample costumes, or use areas specially designated for men or women. There were frequent accidents and deaths, leading to the formation of the Jersey Swimming Club in 1865 by a group of enthusiasts. The club aimed to create safe environments for swimming and soon designated areas at Havre des Pas for this purpose, ladies swimming in the area which had previously been covered by a number of shipyards, some way from where the pool was eventually built, and gentlemen further along the bay towards La Collette. Plans for a permanent bathing area were produced in 1874, and again in 1882, when a Mr Lloyd presented plans which included pools for gentlemen and ladies. Only one pool was ever built. Havre des Pas Swimming Pool was opened on 22 May 1895, built on a plot of foreshore leased from the Crown. It consisted of a large pool attached to a circular granite tower high above the water mark. Gentlemen were not admitted until 1900, and in the early years of the 20th century times were set aside for men and women to swim separately, and then some mixed sessions were permitted, but it was a number of years before the pool was open to all throughout the day. To begin with no bridge linked the pool to the shore at high tide, until one was purchased from Fort d'Auvergne Hotel in 1896 for £13.
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