A MAN who stole a cup of Bovril from an isolation ward at the General Hospital in 1922 was sentenced to three months’ hard labour by the Royal Court, archive records opened to the public for the first time have revealed.
It transpires that Harold Lamerton only escaped further misfortune by the skin of his teeth because court records reveal that the Bailiff had to intervene to resolve a disagreement between the Jurats hearing the case to decide that a shorter three-month sentence was more appropriate than the six months sought by the Crown.
If three months’ hard labour seems harsh for an offence rather quaintly recorded as ‘d’avoir volé une tasse de bovril’, Mr Lamerton’s criminal record – he had 20 convictions for offences including robbery and assault – explain why so trivial a matter was referred to the Royal Court for determination.
The latest records to be released under the Freedom of Information Law provide what Jersey Heritage describe as ‘fresh insight’ into life in Jersey between the two World Wars. They include the appearance of Alexander Coutanche, later the Island’s wartime Bailiff, as defence advocate in a trial for grave and criminal assault following a stabbing; States records relating to the transfer of Elizabeth Castle from the Crown; and responsibility for Overdale Hospital passing to the health authority of the time, the Hospital Committee.
Jersey Heritage’s director of archives and collections Linda Romeril said that the records provided a fascinating insight into the changes in lives over 100 years. ‘The records released this year show the dual role of the General Hospital as a place for those with medical needs and as a poor house, the different types of crimes that were committed in Jersey in the early 1920s and the impact of the rise of Nazi Germany on Island policies,’ she said.
Those wider developments in European history emerge in the story of Rudolf Reich, a Viennese Jew trying to escape from Nazi-administered Austria in the Autumn of 1938. His wife and daughter had previously found work in England and Mr Reich made a series of appeals to try to gain admission to Jersey with his son Erich. Their tone captures the desperation he felt:
‘I beg you once more to help my unhappy son and me out of our miserable situation. We are both healthy and willing to do every work. I expect an answer in a short time, which will save us and give us a possibility to live as human beings,’ he wrote.
In their analysis of the case, Jersey Heritage note that the Defence Committee, responsible for recommendations in such cases, had met two months previously to discuss the Conference of Evian at which delegates from 32 countries discussed the refugee crisis caused by those fleeing Nazi persecution. Records show they discussed the concern, highlighted by the Lieutenant-Governor, that recent German legislation had deprived certain subjects of their nationality and excluded them from German territory, meaning that any refugees admitted could not be repatriated in due course and would have to be supported by the public finances.
Jersey Heritage note: ‘The Committee agree to await the recommendations of the conference before making any decisions. At the conference, 31 countries did not change their policy on refugees and whilst the committee did not mention the Conference again, we can assume that this impacted on their decisions.’
Although Mr Reich and his son were one of five cases to be considered and refused by the committee, the story has a happier ending because archive evidence shows that Rudolph did manage to leave Austria, being interned in England as a German citizen in June 1940 but released a few months later. His release papers show that he was working as a manager of a leather shop in Berkshire.
Erich, Rudolph’s son, also managed to leave Austria. He appears on the England and Wales register for 1939 in Hackney, working as a trainee in a shoe factory. Records on ‘Ancestry’ show that Erich was one of around 10,000 children transported from Germany through the kindertransport programme, which ran in 1938 and 1939.
The latest records to be made available were officially opened to the public on 1 January and can be viewed at the Jersey Archive.
