Museum · St Helier
Société Jersiaise
Founded in January 1873 by a handful of islanders concerned with Jersey's history, language and antiquities, and soon publishing documents, founding a museum and buying archaeological sites outright in order to dig and protect them: La Hougue Bie, Les Monts Grantez, Green Island, Faldouet, and in 1955 La Cotte de Saint-Brélade, an arch in the granite used as shelter between 250,000 and 33,000 years ago.
The story
Founded in January 1873 by a handful of islanders concerned with Jersey's history, language and antiquities, and soon publishing documents, founding a museum and buying archaeological sites outright in order to dig and protect them: La Hougue Bie, Les Monts Grantez, Green Island, Faldouet, and in 1955 La Cotte de Saint-Brélade, an arch in the granite used as shelter between 250,000 and 33,000 years ago. Since 1913 the work has run through Sections staffed by volunteers — fourteen of them, one devoted to Jèrriais, the island's own Norman language and, since 2019, one of Jersey's three official languages. The Lord Coutanche Library and the archives are at the Pier Road headquarters, occupied since 1893.
