Edward Le Quesne: Market Day

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

Market Day

Saturday was the great day of the week for St. Helier, for that was Market day, and from early morning, farmers and their wives could be seen coming to town in their horse vans or box-carts. The vans and carts were parked all along Minden Place, Cattle Street, Beresford Street and Halkett Place; the horses were taken out and stalled for the day at the various Livery stables such as the Paragon in Upper Halkett Place, Gregory’s in La Motte Street, Down’s in Bath Street and Pearce’s (now Barnes) and F auvel’s (now A. de Gruchy) in New Street. Laurens also had a large stable in Seaton Place (‘now the property of Messrs. Huelin Ltd.).

The farmers brought in their produce, eggs, butter, cream and vegetables, and these were sold by their wives at stalls rented by the day, in the Public Markets. The Cattle Market in Minden Place was reserved for the sale of young pigs and poultry and on occasions young heifers and sheep.

There was little tinned food in those days, and people lived on the fresh products of the soil. In the Old Toy Market, now replaced by the Telephone Exchange, Breton women had stalls on which were displayed, and from which were sold, plums, cherries and chestnuts in season, and French butter and eggs also formed their ‘stock in trade’.

During the Winter months these Breton women had a charcoal stove on which they roasted fine chestnuts, which they sold at one penny a dozen. They did a roaring trade on a Saturday, especially with the farmers. Another stall in the same market sold sabots, otherwise wooden shoes, which at that time were almost the exclusive footwear on the farms. Strange that almost forty years had elapsed when during the 1939-45 War we again had to depend on local made sabots for our footwear.

The butchers’ stalls in the Markets had brave shows of local killed meat, for chilled and frozen meat was almost unknown. Large numbers of sheep could be seen grazing on Gouray Common, at the Quennevais, on the slopes of Fort Regent, and in a field now occupied by the Maternity Hospital. For many years this was known as Mutton’s Field, “ Mutton ” being the appropriate name for a local butcher, who owned or rented the field. The beef was principally Spanish beef, the bullocks being brought to Jersey by schooner, and slaughtered at the local abattoir.

At Christmas-time the butchers (now meat purveyors) vied with their competitors in securing prize carcases from the annual Smithfield show, and the displays in the Markets and various shops outside, were something to have seen to be believed. Apart from the huge quantities of beef and pork displayed, turkeys, geese, ducks and fowls by the hundreds covered the front of the shops and stalls, the whole-pigs carcases adorned with holly and an orange in the mouth.