Our Younger Churches: St Martin’s, Gouray

In the 1960s, a series of articles were written for "The Pilot" , the Jersey Church magazine for the Church of England in Jersey by G.R. Balleine. This is one of them.

Our Younger Churches: St Martin’s, Gouray

Gouray Church owes its existence to the oysters.

For centuries an oyster-bed lay not far from the shore. In 1606 the Royal Court decided, in a case in which the Governor claimed this bed as Crown property, that by ancient custom every islander had a right to dredge there. In 1685 Dumaresq wrote in his Survey of Jersey:—“Athwart the Bay lies a small bed of very large and good oysters.” In 1755 the Court prohibited dredging between 1st September and 80th April. For years this trade was confined to local fishermen; but early in the 19th century it attracted the attention of fishing companies in England.

Till then Gorey had been a very insignificant spot, a few taverns for soldiers from the Castle and for sailors on the small-boats that come in from France (for from the 13th century there had been a pier here), an office for the Customs officer, and little more. But now the hamlet began to grow apace.

A Report in 1880 said :—" Messrs. Alston & Co., Messrs. Martin & Co. and six or seven other firms at Sittingbourne, Chersham, and other places in Kent, employ upward of 250 boats, eat-h manned with six men.” In addition there were 70 boats from Colchester and others from Portsmouth, Shoreham, and Southampton.

At least 2,000 men were employed, and the oysters they brought ashore (over 300,000 bushels in 1834) were sorted and packed by hundreds of women and girls. To accommodate this new population rows of cottages were run up, and the States built the present pier to give shelter to the oyster fleet. Oysters were then so plentiful in Jersey that they were served free at all hotel meals.

Many of these new-comers were rough customers, who began to encroach on the French oyster-beds off the Isle of Chausey. The French had never objected to occasional visits by our local fishermen. There were oysters enough for all. But, when large fleets arrived, they naturally ordered them off. In spite of warnings from the British Government that they must not expect protection, the men continued to poach in French waters at night ; and this more than once led to fighting.

In March, 1828, the Sunday Times reported:"‘ An unpleasant affair has taken place between English fishers and two French vessels of war, man)- lives having been lost. About 300 English vessels are engaged in oyster-fishing on the coast of Jersey, and have been repeatedly warned not to approach within a certain distance of the French shore. These warnings have been disregarded, and two French vessels of war captured an English boat. On this news reaching Jersey all the fishing-smacks proceeded to the French coast, boarded the vessels of war, retook the English boat, and brought her back in triumph to Jersey. But several boatmen lost their lives, and a number were taken prisoner.”

A serious clash took place later with the island authorities. To assist the fishery the States laid down new beds in Grouville Bay at a cost of nearly £4,000. But these had to be preserved, till they were ripe for dredging. In April, 1838, 120 boats set out to raid the forbidden beds. The Constable or St. Martin’s followed in a rowing-boat, but the men merely jeered. Next morning he arrested the ring-leaders. But four days later the men raided the beds again. So the Constable appealed to the Lieutenant-Governor, who called out the Garrison and the Town Militia. A couple of cannon-balls dropped among the boats brought them back to port, and 96 Captains were arrested, and each fined £17.

The arrival of these hordes of unruly strangers proved a perplexing problem to a quiet country parish like St. Martin‘s. The French Services in the Parish Church were unintelligible to the new- comers; so in 1830 George Balleine, the. Rector, borrowed a room in the Castle, and held an English Service there in the afternoon. This proved a success, and the room was soon overcrowded: so in July, 1831, he called a Meeting in the Rectory, which passed a resolution:—“This Meeting is impressed by a deep sense of the duty of providing spiritual instruction for the numerous seamen yearly employed in the oyster fishery and strongly recommends the erection of a Chapel of Ease at Gorey for the benefit of this long-neglected class of people.”

Six months later it was reported that £585 had been subscribed, and a Building Committee was appointed to select a site. Mr. George Asplet then gave the ground on which the church now stands, and the first stone was laid by General Thornton, the Lieutenant Governor. in 1832. The church was opened on 2nd April, 1833, the morning sermon being preached by Dean Corbet Hue; and on 12th October, 1885, it was consecrated by Bishop Sumner of Winchester.

For more than forty years it remained merely a Mission Church in the parish of St. Martin, and the Minister-in-charge was licensed as Curate to the Rector. But in 1875 an Order in Council was obtained constituting Gouray an independent Ecclesiastical District. Then however unexpected legal difficulties arose. Methodism could build new Chapels when and where it liked ; but the Church, cribbed, cabined, and confined by its ancient links with the State, found itself fettered right and left by innumerable Acts of Parliament. To create a new Ecclesiastical District in England no less than fifteen separate Acts of Parliament had to be brought into play ; and not one of these had ever been registered in Jersey, nor could they be, for they laid duties on Archdeacons and other officials who did not exist in the island. The result was an absolute deadlock.

Meanwhile the Rector of St. Martin’s had signed a deed resigning the patronage to the Bishop and the Crown alternately, and the Bishop actually exercised his right, when be appointed Edouard Luce as Curate-in-charge in 1875. But, when he was made Rector of St. John‘s (later he became Rector of St. Saviour’s, Canon. and Vice-Dean), the Crown refused to appoint, till the legal difficulties were removed.

A new Rector of St. Martin‘s then stood stiffly on his rights, and in 1879 sued Hogg Harding, Minister of Gouray, before the Ecclesiastical Court, because since 1875 he had not registered his baptisms in the Parish Church Register. The Court ordered him to do so, and forbade him to take any further baptisms without the Rector’s sanction.

So matters remained for another quarter of a century ; but toward the end of that time Sir George Bertram, the Bailiff, who lived in Gorey and worshipped in the church, began to stir up the Crown officials to find some way out of this impasse. At last in 1899 the States agreed to register the fifteen Acts of Parliament with the verbal alterations necessary to adopt them to the island’s constitution; and on 17th September, 1900, a new Order in Council freed the church from all dependence on its mother parish, and allotted to it an ecclesiastical district taken partly from St. Martin’s and partly from Grouville.

The old name, which the Vikings had given, as they sailed down the Channel, to the little creek formed by the Castle rock, must have been something like the Norman name Gourock in Scotland. In 1180 Gorey was spelt Gorroic in the Norman Exchequer Rolls. It was Gorryk in the 1274 extente, and Gourroic in 1331 (in old Scandinavian ‘ vik ’ meant a cove. Compare Runswick, Loop Wyke, Maw Wyke, Blea Wyke, etc., all along the Yorkshire coast). In time Gourroic got softened to Gourret, Gouray, and Gorey. The last has become the accepted form of the word ; but, since the Order in Council spoke of “ the church of St. Martin, Gouray,” this slightly archaic spelling is still retained in ecclesiastical matters.

Now that the congregation had possession of its own church, improvements were carried out. In 1909 a new organ was given. In 1915 the church was partially rebuilt, and vestries and a new Sanctuary added, the latter being consecrated by the Bishop of Southampton on 18th May.