For our introduction to our new theme for this project, we took a trip to The Societe Jersiaise to look at archives during the jersey occupation it was founded in 1873 for these following purposes.

• The Publication of Local History,
• The encouragement of the use of French, the official language,
• The study of the ancient local dialect
• To achieve, as far as possible, the conservation of all prehistoric and historical sites
• To found a library, mainly historical and archaeological
• To collaborate with other societies with similar aims

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Societe Jersiase found a permanent home in 1893 when they moved to 9 Pier Road, a large early nineteenth century merchant’s house. The extensive Museum collections are now looked after by Jersey Heritage but they are consistantly adding to the collection.  In 1977 they built a large extension to the archive on the site of No 7 Pier Road to house the library and meeting rooms.Over the years, Jersey heritage have purchased archaeological sites in Jersey for preservation and presentation. According to them their two most important sites are La Hougue Bie, bought in 1919, and La Cotte de Saint-Brélade, purchased in 1955. They’ve carried out extensive excavations at both sites.

In 1913 the Société’s activities as a learned society were organised into ‘Sections’ for the study of different aspects of the island.  These Sections, now 14 in number continue to be the backbone of their activities.  They also employ specialist staff to look after their library archives and photographic archives.

Many of their activities have been made possible by substantial gifts of money over the years and they’ve always got important projects in need of funds. In a way It shows that even over 70 odd years there are still many things on the island to be discovered and shown off as people often think that we are only an island so there’s limitations however Jersey is more precious with it archaeological discoveries. I believe that everything we find now should be preserved as something so small could contribute massively to researchers and historians interested in the times of the war and during the occupation.There are many museum and other collections that have been largely built up through gifts and bequests which has ensured its preservation of many important items with relevance to Jersey including; books, manuscripts and maps, photographs, prints and paintings, archaeological finds and historical items.