Visiting Société Jersiaise

“The Société Jersiaise was founded in 1873 for the study of Jersey archaeology, history, natural history, the ancient language and the conservation of the environment.”

– source

About the Société

The Société Jersiaise is a Jersey archive which preserves Jersey’s history. Amongst many objects, they house many images that depict Jersey’s occupation during WW2. In the archive you can find many images taken by both German soldiers and Jersey people.

The Société was founded by a group of jersey individuals who were keen on jersey’s history and wanted to make sure it was kept. The Société then grew to include the founding of a museum, and the purchasing archaeological sites in order to preserve and present them. Some sights now owned by the Société Jersiaise are La Houge Bie and La Cotte de Saint-Brélade

Images to the right are from the Société Jersiaise archive.

Our Day

Our day began with a presentation where we were told some background information on the archive, such as when it was founded and some of the important Jersey photographers who’s work are in the archive.

The archive was formed in 1873, and in 1877 they announced that they had aims of opening a museum. The archive contains over 100,000 images from the mid 1840s, to today. Since Britain and France were both known for the development of photography, Jersey (located between the two) has a rich history in photography. On the 9th of May 1840, photography arrived in Jersey, and the archive contains works by photographers such as Thomas Sutton and William Collie.

We then spent the majority of the time looking through many collections of images, both from the archive and private collectors, from the occupation of Jersey.

We were able to see many photos taken by both Jersey and German photographers, which was very interesting as it meant we were able to see two different perspectives of the occupation.

After choosing our favourite images, we then recorded the reference numbers so that the archive were able to provide us with the digital version you can see in the gallery to the right.

Next, We spent some time learning about narratives. A narrative is the idea that a group of images are able to tell an audience a story. We were given a selection of copies of archive images so that we were able to attempt our own narratives in groups. This was a helpful task as it aided me in realising that sometimes, less images may be better than more. Below is the narrative that my group produced:

We decided to place the images chronologically to tell the story of the Nazis invading. The images on the left show soldiers either on Jersey’s coast or on the sea. This is the beginning part of them coming to Jersey. In the centre you can see images of soldiers integrating into Jersey’s centre which is meant to symbolise the beginning of the occupation. Towards the right, you can see images of the soldiers with machinery and ammunition showing them settling into the Island.

Taking my own images

Next, We walked around Jersey’s town centre in order to take images of things to do with the occupation of Jersey.

Best images

Comparing images

while taking images around town, I decided to go to some locations that I had seen in images at the archive. Below are the archive images, compared to the images I took.