September

Jersey was struck by both a hurricane and an earthquake in September. It was also the month that Channel Television went on air for the first time, the BBC broadcast the first edition of its local news programme, Spotlight, and Freemont Tower transmitted its first signals to the Channel Islands.

Construction of the Gorey branch of Jersey’s incomplete (and never completed) railway network began, on which a soldier would tragically lose his life, again in a September, when picking track-side flowers from a moving train.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert paid Jersey an official visit during the month and were surprised at how good a view they got of the French coast. That visit was commemorated several years later when, in the same month, Victoria College, which was named in the Queen’s honour, enrolled its first students.

But September is also the month in which we should remember someone who has done more than most to promote the island and bolster its exports: Hugh de la Haye, who discovered the Jersey Royal potato, died on the second of the month.