An 1837 commercial directory shows grocer E Perchard as the occupant of No 37.
No 37 and No 39 King Street, known as Victoria House, were occupied by drapers Hamons from around 1845. The business finally closed in 2018, despite the owners announcing their intention to wind down and close the business as long ago as 2008.
John Hamon, who was the final proprietor with his brother Edward, said then that the shop could still be in business at Christmas and beyond that time, and so it has proved. The family owns the premises and Mr Hamon said that they had no plans to sell it. It is now being advertised to let.
Victoria House was added to the list of sites of special architectural and historical interest in 2008.
Although the business was referred to for many years as 'one of St Helier's oldest family businesses', it was actually started eight years after Voisins, which remains in business opposite, still owned by the same family as when it opened in 1837.
The business first traded as Hamon and Vonberg, but from 1861 onwards it was known as Hamon and Co, Hamon and Son, and then simply Hamons. By 1851 the business had expanded from No 37 to include No 39 next door.
Founders
The business was founded by brothers-in-law. Harriet, daughter of Robert Bartley and Betsy Benest, married William Vonberg. Her sister Jane married Charles Hamon. Charles was born in October 1821, the son of Charles Hamon and Susanna, nee Hubert.
Jane and Charles raised a large family and built the drapery business into a very successful enterprise.
There were 13 children in the Hamon family.They lived first at Devonshire Place, St Helier,later moving to a large house called Dulce Dominum at 61 Colomberie. This house is now the Norfolk Hotel.
After Jane’s death in 1882 Charles Hamon remarried, to Mary Ann Eddy. The eldest daughter of William Eddy and Mary Hall. Mary Ann was born in St Helier in 1833. She worked as an assistant in the drapery and had been godmother to Earnest Queree, Jane's nephew in 1865. She also predeceased Charles, dying on 23 April 1899.
Charles died in 1901 and his son Charles William took over the business.
Jane is buried in the Hamon family plot, in the Methodist section of the Almorah Cemetery, Jersey.
Historic Environment Record entry
37-39 King Street are of interest as late Georgian buildings which contain the only example in Jersey of a Victorian galleried shop interior.
Shop, early 19th century with galleried interior. The Le Gros map shows three buildings on the site in 1834. These were separately purchased and combined by draper Charles Hamon in the mid-19th century. Victoria House (No 37) was bought in 1845, followed in 1847 by a former bakery that sat behind King Street. Finally, the premises fronting King Street (No 39) was purchased in 1854. The Hamon family operated a draper's business from these premises for over 170 years.
Victoria House appears to have been built as a shop in the late Georgian period, pre-1830, and elements of its architectural design are indicative of that period. The shop occupies a prominent position with five bays on Brook Street and two bays on King Street with a curved corner bay. The building is three-storey and is rendered in imitation ashlar with a moulded string course below a parapet wall which masks a shallow pitched roof. There is a pair of 19th century fluted cast iron columns framing a recessed corner entrance, and a similar pair of fluted cast iron columns at the Brook Street entrance.
Otherwise the ground floor is characterised by large plain shop windows with panelled risers and glazed doors with long single panes and appliqué faux panels beneath - apparently dating to the 1920s. There are original 12-pane timber sash windows without horns on the first floor, with a large loading 'door' at the corner. The second floor also has contemporary 12-pane sash windows but of a diminished scale, with a curved sash window at the corner.
The interior of Victoria House retains some early joinery, including panelled linings and aprons on the windows and unusually bold mouldings on the architrave. An internal door has matching mouldings and an unusual arrangement of six panels. There are some exposed floor beams visible with early beaded edges.
No 39 was built in the 1820s and incorporates a building on the street frontage and another to the rear - now combined into a single space. The King Street façade is three-storey, three-bay and is rendered in imitation rusticated ashlars and voussoirs. A parapet wall masks the roof . There are 12-pane sash windows without horns on the second floor and the first floor has modified two-pane sashes.
The shopfront is contemporary with Victoria House and of the same circa 1920s design. The interior of No 39 is of particular interest as it is the only example in Jersey of a Victorian galleried shop. The interior is open to the second floor and is circled by a full gallery with decorative cast iron balustrades and a mahogany hand rail. The gallery is accessed via an Edwardian staircase of relatively grand scale. A pair of tall, fluted cast iron columns midway in the shop supports the former boundary wall between the earlier buildings.
Chronology
- 1834 - No record
- 1837 - E Perchard, grocer
- 1851 - Hamon and Vonberg
- 1857 - Hamon and Vonberg
- 1861 - 2018 - Hamons, drapers, haberdashers etc
- 2023 to present - Collins stationers and printers
Hamon family album
Martin Hamon
Jessie Hamon
Matilda Hamon
Lydia Hamon
Jane Hamon remembrance card
Charles and Jane Hamon and family in 1868
Beryl Jamieson at Hamon's
Hamon's
Hamon's in 1965
Hamons on the left during Coronation celebrations in 1953
Mrs Le Gresley at the counter of Hamon's
2018, and the business finally closes
2021, and the premises are under offer
An amazingly detailed model of the shop at Jersey Museum
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November 2023, and the shop was finally reopened by Collins as a supplier of stationery and office equipment
Advertisements
1857
1857
1857
1852
A 1853 advert indicating that Hamon and Vonberg were also insurance agents
1874 advert
1899 Evening Post advert
1907
