Francis Foot was born in 1885, his father was a china and Glass dealer in Dumaresq Street, at a time when the area was one of the more wealthy in St Helier. Francis started his working life as a gas fitter. However, he soon became fascinated by photography, the early phonographs and gramophone records and realised that he could earn a living from them.So the family took on a second shop in Pitt Street, where Francis worked as a photographer, while his father and mother sold gramophones, records in Dumaresq Street. After his father’s death, Francis concentrated the business in Pitt Street. Francis’ grandson John gave the collection of the glass plates and other photographic material, which had been gathering dust since his grandfather’s death, to La Société Jersiaise. in 1996. Its online photographic archive contains 322 images of subjects as diverse as Battles of Flowers, St Helier Harbour, shipwrecks, fetes and coastal and country views. Francis Foot also took 16mm black and white cine films, some of which, from the 1930s, are now held by the Jersey Archive. These show such events as aircraft landing on the beach at West Park, a visit by HMS Sheffield, cattle shows, Battle of Flowers at Springfield and the Liberation and visit soon after of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.