A corner of the Island with its own community, school and golf club

A corner of the Island with its own community, school and golf club

‘La Moye’ (spelt with both a ‘y’ and an ‘i’) comes from the Jersey Norman-French term ‘mouaie’, which means ‘stony heap’, and you can see why, when viewing La Moye point and the headland from the sea, it may have got this name.

La Vingtaine de la Moye encompasses the very south-western corner of the Island and included within its boundaries are Corbière to the west, St Brelade’s Church and the Fishermen’s Chapel on the eastern boundary, while the northern boundary runs from just north of La Pulente, dissecting Route Orange, where La Moye School is, and heading south-east towards the bottom of La Marquanderie.

La Moye, it appears, was very much its own community, separated from St Peter and St Ouen by the natural barrier of the sand dunes to the north and the rocky headland to the east.

The 1795 Richmond Map shows there were quite a number of properties in the area at this time, including La Moye Manor, La Moie Villa, Maison Gruchy, Oak Lane Farm, The Poplars and La Sergenté. The construction of Route Orange in the early 1820s, named for the Connétable of St Brelade, John Orange, would have obviously provided an easier route to and from the rest of the parish and from there to the rest of the Island. The road is clearly marked about a quarter of century later on the 1849 Godfray Map.

The first few years of the 20th century saw both the construction of La Moye Primary School and the beginnings of La Moye Golf Club, both important fixtures of the community. Both institutions have a shared history, with George Boomer, the first headmaster of La Moye School, also being responsible for the founding of the golf club in 1902.

Born in St Helier in 1857, George William Boomer trained to be a teacher and after some time spent teaching in London, moved back to Jersey with his wife, Emma, and their sons to teach at Grouville Central School. It was there that he would teach (in both an academic and sporting sense) future Open and US Open Champion golfers Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. Both of his sons, Percy and Aubrey, would also go on to be professional golfers, with Aubrey playing in the 1927 Ryder Cup.

Jersey Archive holds a copy of the La Moye School log book, which makes for fascinating reading and gives us an insight into some of the challenges that faced this country school and the wider La Moye community.

Virtually every other page contains a comment about the poor attendance levels of the children, with both the weather and agricultural work affecting whether they made it in for lessons. Boomer sums this up best in an entry from February 1904 in which he writes: ‘The week has commenced with beautiful weather, and as a number of farmers have seized the opportunity of commencing to plant potatoes, the school attendance, especially in the first class, has commenced to fall off, owing to the children being required to help in this…very important business. All through the winter the children have been kept away by the wet and stormy weather and now that a spell of fine weather has set in, work in the fields deprives the school of a third of the scholars. Holidays will now have to be given, as the planting season will last a month and it is of no use trying to work a half-empty school.’

As with many other schools in Jersey, the German Occupation also presented many challenges for pupils and teachers alike. Mrs Bessie Godfray had been appointed headmistress in 1927 and she was in charge at the start of the Occupation. She writes of the confusion in early July 1940 of working out exactly which families had evacuated or had moved to St Helier to find work.

Unfortunately she had to request a transfer to a different school in September of the same year, as the occupying forces had by this stage forbidden the use of private vehicles and closed some roads, meaning that the distance from her home at Les Jardins, St Ouen, was too far to La Moye School on her bicycle. Reginald Charles Foote therefore took over.

During the latter part of 1941, German officers visited the school, along with the Constable of St Brelade, to discuss the possible requisition of the building. Headmaster Foote writes that they have been warned that if the building is requisitioned they will have to vacate within 48 hours, so he asks the teachers to bundle up the school books in readiness. On 29 January 1942, La Moye School was closed and all stock and furniture moved to L’Harmonie (opposite the Poplars), with the school reopening there on 23 February.

Sadly for Mr Foote, in late September 1942 orders for the deportation of all English-born men and their families were received and even though he might have claimed exemption due to his profession, he writes on 28 September that: ‘I consider it my duty to travel with other English families…I expect to be deported tomorrow and am therefore closing school until Wednesday.’

The following day Reginald Foote, his wife, Kathleen, and their daughter, Elizabeth, were all transported from Jersey, eventually arriving at Dorsten Transit Internment Camp before their transfer to Biberach Internment Camp in southern Germany.

Whilst interned in both camps, Mr Foote resumed teaching and we have in the collection a cartoon of him as ‘Headmaster’ drawn by fellow Biberach camp internee Arscott Dickinson (a former States Librarian), which is reproduced here by kind permission of Jersey Library.

If we return to George Boomer, his legacy is perhaps much better remembered in connection with La Moye Golf Club, just a short distance away from the school.

In March 1904 George, in his position as secretary of La Moye Golf Club, and Frederick Herbert Middleton, its president, leased some land from Captain Albert Le Gallais of La Moye Manor on which a redesigned course was opened officially a year later.

George Boomer’s old pupil, Harry Vardon, came to play a match over the La Moye links in 1904, and a newspaper reports that a special train had been put on from town, with over 200 spectators turning out to watch. Interviewed shortly afterwards by the Jersey Times, Vardon remarked that: ‘From a purely golfing point of view La Moye course was better than Grouville…a good test of golf; and it was a treat to play well upon it, as good strokes were rewarded by the result.’

The first clubhouse was built in 1908 and by the time of the 1911 census George Boomer’s wife, Emma, is marked as being the golf club stewardess.

In the early evening of 4 February 1932 disaster struck when fire broke out in the clubhouse, destroying the main portion of the building and causing damage which was estimated at over £2,000. The ladies’ section of the clubhouse, which had been a recent addition, survived relatively intact, but the Jersey Weekly Post reporter paints a vivid picture of the aftermath: ‘Disconsolate men golfers stood in knots discussing the blaze and the loss of their clubs and in many cases other possessions as well.

Others were vainly attempting to identify the heads of their clubs in the rows of smoke-blackened relics which had been laid out by the caddies.’

Luckily there were no casualties except for the poor club cat, which slept in a box in the kitchen.

This article only touches on some of the stories of La Moye.

If you would like to find out more, the Jersey Archive will be hosting a talk at 10 am on Saturday 18 August as part of the Le Gallais-sponsored What’s Your Street’s Story? project.

The Archive is open from 9 am to 1 pm on 18 August to encourage everyone to come and find out more about the history and people of your area. If you would like to book your place on the talk please call Jersey Archive on 833300 or email archives@jerseyheritage.org.

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