On this day in 1895

Jersey college principal is killed

Thirty-four-year-old George Stanley Farnell, who was the principal of Victoria College, was found dead in a small cave at Plemont, having apparently drowned after going for a walk at Corbiere and subsequently been washed ashore by the tide. The Guernsey Star said, “The body was lying face downwards, with one arm outstretched, and was terribly injured, the head being much battered and both legs completely smashed”.

He had been principal since 1892, but his replacement, LV Lester-Garland, was not appointed until the following year.

In 1893, Farnell had been charged with assault after beating a 17-year-old student with a cane that, according to a doctor’s testimony at a subsequent hearing, had been particularly harsh. The court clearly agreed, as it bound over the headmaster to be less severe in the future. His cane was confiscated, and the Constable of St Helier proposed that corporal punishment be banned but was voted down by 14 votes to 12.

 

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...and on this day in 1938

The Jersey Airport disaster

The disaster, which killed two crew, twelve passengers and a farmhand occurred half a kilometre east of the runway as a plane made its initial ascent. It hit the ground during its initial turn and “there was a sharp explosion,” reported the Gloucester Citizen, “and the passengers were blown out of the machine, mutilated almost beyond recognition.” The plane, a Jersey Airways de Havilland DH86 called St Catherine’s Bay, had come down at 10.52am in dense, low cloud after 30 seconds in the air on its way to Southampton.

An SOS went out across the island, asking all doctors, ambulances and fire engines to attend the scene.

In a 2009 retrospective, the Jersey Evening Post said, “numerous people witnessed the crash, but its cause remains a mystery.” Those who saw it happen reported the engines revving furiously and, says the Jersey Evening Post, “There were suggestions that the pilot, AGM Cary, who had previously been the private pilot of the Viceroy of India, had been trying to make a forced landing but failed to touch down safely because the plane’s undercarriage hit the ground and then ploughed catastrophically through the hedge of the first field.”

 


 

 

Yesterday…

Islander makes and emergency landing

An Islander aircraft set off from Jersey in bad weather and had to make an emergency landing after the engine started surging.

Tomorrow…

Jersey concentration camp prisoner Gordon Prigent is born

Gordon Prigent was born in St Helier in 1924 and during the occupation was sent to deported to Alderney.

Jersey gets the roller-skating bug

Crowds took to the floor of a rink at West Park Pavilion as they kept warm through winter by roller skating.