As a photography section we went on a visit to one of two archives that we have in Jersey, we learnt how this archive have been collecting and restoring photos and documents from WWII as it is a big part of the Islands history.

The Photographic Archive of the Société Jersiaise contains over 80,000 images dating from the mid-1840s to the present day (with around 36,000 images from the collection being digitally transferred onto the Société’s online archive) and is the principal Jersey collection of nineteenth and early twentieth century photography. On the 9th of May 1840 photography; in it’s early development, was introduced to Jersey. Just nine months after first being publicised in urban centers of England and France.

Proceeding an introduction of the roles of the archive we were shown folders of photos which had been preserved and kept which had then been given to the archives of WWII photos and documents. Some of these included photos of the streets of Jersey and some officers which were located, but there were also books of the different coastal areas within Jersey with detailed drawings and notes in where turrets were placed and the vicinity in which the guns could fire under threat. There were also notes made about the local landscape and the way their were shaped.

I thoroughly enjoyed the visit to the Société Jersiaise archives, as it allowed me to gain a wider knowledge and understanding of archives and how they keep and restore their photos and documents.