Edward Le Quesne: 50 Years of Memories

Edward Le Quesne (1882-1957) was elected a Deputy for St Helier No 2 district in 1925 and held the seat until he stood successfully for the new office of Senator in 1948. This is an extract from a journal he wrote entitled “50 Years of Memories”, written sometime around 1949.

Chapter 1: Early memories
By Edward Le Quesne

During the last fifty or sixty years so many changes have occurred in the life and outlook of all who have lived during that period that I feel it would be of interest, not only to the present generation, but to those coming along after we have passed away, for a Jerseyman who has spent the greater part of his life as an active member of this little community, to place on record some of the many experiences in which he has participated, and some of the many changes he has witnessed.

In doing this I am not attempting any orderly detail, although some items stand out in never-forgotten isolation, though they may appear to others as having no apparent logic or intrinsic value. What other people saw and experienced was not always what one lived through oneself.

Neither is this a history of Jersey in the early twentieth century. To the student, all that can be available is at the Public Library and in the files of the local newspapers kept there.

What I shall endeavour to set down ,are my own personal memories, which may be sometimes inaccurate, confused, or even chaotic, though to me they represent a true picture of what happened in those years.

The first thing I distinctly recollect was the unveiling of the Queen’s statue in the Weighbridge Gardens. This was in 1887, when, at the age of four, I was taken by my father to witness the ceremony.

My father was a special constable for the occasion, and, placing me in the front row, I stood between two soldiers. One of them quite accidentally, dropped his rifle on my foot, which almost led to a free-fight between my father and the soldier.

Soon after that I was sent to Mr. Ollivier’s school in Charing Cross, where Messrs. Huelin now have their ironmongery establishment, and I well remember being taken by the master, with several other boys, to see the first incandescent gas lamp.

This had been erected in the Royal Square by the Gas Company, and was a great improvement on the old fish-tail gas burner then in use, which, apart from being highly dangerous, created an amount of soot that quickly spoilt all decorations.

The first gramophone was also on view in the Royal Square, and for two pence you were permitted to place two unsterilised earpieces in position in order to listen to a piece of music played from a cylinder about six inches long, and which sounded much like the sound made by a man singing whilst suffering from a severe attack of nasal catarrh.

But whilst to-day records of that type are out of date and the insanitary method of listening would not be appreciated, in those days we boys thought it “ the last thing in entertainment ”, and every penny we could spare was used, in order to hear the same tune played again, that we had heard several times previously.

Another great source of entertainment in those days was Poole’s Myorama, that generally visited Jersey once a year and gave their “World-Renowned Show” in the Oddfellows’ Hall in Don Street, now occupied by Messrs. Tregear.

This show, which principally consisted of the unrolling of large pictures accompanied by appropriate descriptions from the compere, with various hangings of drums, etc., to represent thunder and broadsides of guns from warships, always drew large audiences, and on Saturday afternoons children were admitted for three-pence in front seats and two pence in the rear. I well remember the shoving and pushing that ensued immediately the doors opened and the shouting and cheering when an enemy ship was sunk during the course of a showing of the battle of the Tugela River.

We boys were little snobs and because we were being educated at private schools, were not supposed to mix with boys from the elementary schools and the Ragged School that existed in those Bad Old Days.

This Ragged School was situated in Cannon Street, where are now a number of modern service flats. Many of the children attending this school were poorly clad and ill-fed and I have seen many, even on a cold winter day, going to school in rags and minus boots or stockings. 

My mother frequently made the washhouse “copper” into a soup-making vessel, and provided a number of these children with a midday meal of hot soup containing plenty of meat and vegetables. Collections of surplus clothing were made by members of the various churches and chapels for the benefit of these unfortunate little ones.