The the photographic archive of the Société Jersiaise which consists of around 80,000 images dating back to the 1840s. This includes many different collection from different time periods, places on the island and different parts of history; including the occupation. This provides a very good understanding of what Jersey used to be like in both the nineteenth and early twentieth century. The photographic archive of the Société Jersiaise was founded in 1873, to create not only a museum, but also a library. The Société Jersiaise opened its museum in 1877 and with collection of photographs already identified as a priority, these activities were continued as significant parts of the Société museum and library. Some of the first photos to be produced arrived in Jersey on the 9th of May 1840 and after nine months the Société Jersiaise first publicized it in the urban centers of England and France.

The archive contains examples of work by important early photographers such as Henry Mullins William Collie, Thomas Sutton and Charles Hugo. The collection also contains late nineteenth century collections of negatives by Jersey based photographers such as Ernest Baudoux, Albert Smith and Clarence Ouless. There were also very important twentieth century documents and images including a major archive collection of over 1000 negatives by Percival Dunham, Jersey’s first photo-journalist, as well as an archive of 1300 German Occupation images compiled by Emile F Guiton; the honorary Curator of the Société Jersiaise Museum and founder of the Photographic Archive. Public access to the archive was granted in 1992, and now contains online catalog with over 36,000 images that can be searched via a link online, as well as visiting the archive to view the images, negatives and original prints as well.