A 1946 picture set

Jersey in 1946

Pierre Roughol at sea, believed to be on his way to Jersey in 1946

In 1946 French photographer Pierre Roughol, who had already built up a considerable reputation as a war correspondent, travelled to Jersey where he took a fascinating selection of photographs of the island as it recovered from the German Occupation. He was welcomed by the Bailiff, Alexander Coutanche, and took photographs of him in the States, the Royal Court, and at his home

Dinner at Alexander Coutanche's home with a
senior Army officer as a guest

Pierre Roughol (1913-1974) did his best work during and immediately after World War II. He first captured life in Stalag VII-A, the prisoner camp where he and his brother Gilbert Roughol (1908-1970), were sent after the French army surrendered in 1940. Later freed, he photographed the insurrection of Paris in August 1944 and followed France's First Army to Marseille, then east to Alsace – where he was wounded – and eventually Germany, celebrating VE Day on Lake Constance. His first peacetime reportage took him to the Channel Islands, the last bit of Western Europe to be liberated.

After they spent years gathering dust in a family attic, his great-niece Isabelle undertook to digitise and publish his archives, completing with her own research what notes and captions he had left. Many negatives survived and like a jigsaw puzzle, had to be reassembled into sensical, chronological collections. Other images only survived as aging prints, or even darkroom test strips. The best pictures were sold, which at the time meant handing over the negative.

The Roughol family is happy for this work to be used for research and educational purposes. ^[1] We have assembled a selection of pictures on this page, as well as adding them, with others, to subject pages throughout the website.