The Channel Islands have a long and colourful history. Neolithic farmers settled c5000BC and created the many dolmens and menhirs found in the islands. Christianity arrived in the 6th century. In 933 the islands came under the control of the Duchy of Normandy, and today the Channel Islands represent the medieval duchy’s last remnants remaining to the Crown.
The islands were repeatedly attacked by French pirates and naval forces in the Middle Ages. During the English Civil War, Jersey remained Royalist while Guernsey sided with Parliament.
The islands prospered during the 18th and 19th centuries due to their success in the global maritime trade and the rise of the stone industry.
Since earliest times the islands have had a migrant population. In the early part of the 19th century, the majority of islanders still spoke a Franco-Norman dialect with a culture related to their close French neighbours. This changed dramatically around the time of WWI when the islands became influenced by the English economy and culture.
From around 1600, some islanders left their homes for new lives in North America, Australia, New Zealand and other far-flung places. Sir Walter Raleigh was the Governor of Jersey in the early 1600s and his interest in the development of Newfoundland and Virginia focused islanders’ attention on the New World.
Likewise, immigrants have always come to the islands looking for work. A study of the Guernsey censuses from 1841 to 1901 gives the number of English immigrants as just over 20,000, followed by French immigrants at just over 4,000 and Irish at 2,500. Many of these immigrants to Guernsey would have worked in the stone trade. Guernsey granite was used to pave London streets from 1823 (and Jersey granite was used for Chatham docks). Sizeable building projects in the islands drew a large immigrant labour force who worked on the building of the harbours in St Helier in Jersey and St Peter Port in Guernsey as well as the Alderney breakwater, St Catherine’s breakwater in Jersey and the building of military forts.
The first Jersey Royal potato was grown in 1872 and this industry has always attracted migrant workers right up to today. Other trades in the islands over the centuries have included knitting (Guernsey stockings were said to be worn by Queen Elizabeth I, and Jersey sweaters are famous), shipbuilding, fishing, agriculture and horticulture and of course the trades which support the population: butchers, shoemakers, seamstresses, gardeners etc. Grapes were grown in glasshouses from about 1860 and then tomatoes. The tomato industry became very successful and at its height in the late 1960s nearly half a billion tomatoes were picked yearly and exported to England.
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During World War One thousands of island men served in the British Army in France. There were heavy losses with around 1,200 Jersey men and 1,000 Guernsey men not returning. The islands were then occupied by German troops in World War Two. Many islanders were evacuated to England just before the arrival of the German forces and some were deported by the Germans to camps in the southwest of Germany. There was a concentration camp in Alderney occupied by forced labourers from Eastern Europe. The islands were heavily fortified during WWII as part of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall and defences are still visible all around the coast today.
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