Following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in October 1685, which ordered the destruction of Huguenot Churches and the closing of Huguenot Schools in France, it is estimated that as many as 900,000 French Calvinists fled their homeland. They went to places such as England, Sweden, Holland, and Denmark in their search to find religious freedom.
Thomas Benjamin Davis was a self-made millionaire who gave this lifeboat to Jersey in memory of his youngest son Howard, who was wounded on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, and who later died of his wounds.
Davis was the son of a humble ship’s carpenter. He made his fortune in stevedoring, wharfing and lighterage in South Africa at the turn of the 20th century. The boat was one of many gifts made to the island of his birth, by the philanthropist Thomas Davis.
Continue reading “The Howard D – Jersey’s first motorised lifeboat”
Built between 1854 and 1856 on the Brehon Rock, in the middle of the Little Russel between Guernsey and Herm, this is the last local fortification built during the Napoleonic period. It was constructed by Thomas Charles Du Putron from Herm granite at a cost of £8098.
Mineral exploration took place in Sark in early 1830. Copper, silver and lead and other minerals were found, but it was not until 1836 that a mine was sunk here at Port Gorey on Little Sark. Over 200 Cornish miners were brought in, a 120 HP steam engine was installed and a narrow gauge railway was constructed. Continue reading “Sark – The Silver Mines”
There has been a defensive site here for over 2,000 years; from the Iron Age right up to the Second World War. In the earliest incarnation, the fortification would have simply been a ‘Castle of Refuge’, one of five in Jersey that provided temporary protection whenever rampaging invaders landed.
Continue reading “Mont Orgueil – “a fort of great capacity””
Like many other coastal villages, St.Aubin takes its name from the 6thCentury bishop of Angers, who was said to give protection from pirates. This is rather ironic, as Jersey’s highly successful fleet of privateers were based here during the English Civil War.
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