History of Gloucester Street
What's Her Street's Story? – Gloucester Street
This article is based on the Jersey Archive Street Story presentation in August 2019, focusing on women who influenced some of the street's important buildings
Gloucester Street contains some of Jersey's most important civic buildings, including the Hospital, Opera House, and formerly Newgate Street Prison.
Over the course of the history of the street some inspiring and sometimes tragic women have been part of its story.
It was originally known as Route de l'Hopital [1]. It was later renamed after William, Duke of Gloucester, who visited the island in September 1814. He was much lampooned in the national newspapers and was known to be extremely pompous. It is thought that the phrase 'Silly Billy' was coined for him.
The street predated his visit by several years and was already well established by the time he came to the island. A few of the original buildings from that time are still left, and are now listed buildings. No 17, which was owned by the de Veulle family for many years, forms part of a mirrored pair with No 19 and is one of an original row of seven houses.
The Hospital dominates one side of the street. Within living memory it was connected to the prison beside it, before a new facility was built at La Moye. Both buildings have the influence of women to thank for their continued development.
Marie Bartlett
The Hospital was built with a bequest in 1741 by Marie Bartlett[2], a wealthy St Aubin widow. In an age when there was little provision for the poor and elderly, childless Mrs Bartlett wanted to see that the widows and children of Jersey were provided for.
Her husband Francis died in 1734 and left everything to her and she carried on his import business. In 1738 she was in partnership with Thomas Pipon.
She was an astute, successful businesswoman and managed to increase her husband's fortune after his death. Her wealth was estimated to be somewhere in excess of £7 million in today's money.
Mrs Bartlett was a strong woman who refused to back down when bullied by other merchants. She became embroiled in legal action with Jean Le Hardy, who she claimed had raised his stick at her and threatened to smash her head in. The dispute, involving a cargo of coal for New England, was still ongoing at the time of her death in 1741.
Her testament was badly written, with poor spelling, and led to disagreement over what she had intended. Much of the money she left was eaten up by legal fees and challenges to the will be relatives, and it was many years before the Hospital was built in St Helier, rather than St Aubin, which was her original intention. It still stands as a testament to her generosity to the island.
Senator Gwyneth Huelin
It was over 200 years before another woman took up the reins of welfare for the island. The health service has Senator Gwyneth Huelin to thank for bringing Mrs Bartlett's vision into the modern age.
When Mrs Huelin was elected to the States she was one of only two female members. She became president of the Health Committee in 1963 and soon realised how much work was needed to give Jersey the health service it deserved.
Facilities at the time were inadequate for a rapidly growing population, particularly with regard to provisions for mental health care. She oversaw a £15 million project to modernise the hospital and to give mental health patients some privacy and dignity during treatment. The Geyneth Huelin wing at the hospital was named in her honour.
Elizabeth Fry
Social reformer Elizabeth Fry came to Jersey for a holiday in the 1830s[3] and fell in love with the island. She was woman of strong convictions, a Quaker from the famous chocolate-making family.[4] She is credited with changing the way Newgate Street Prison, and many others throughout the UK, were run.
When she visited Jersey she was shocked at the way that the Island housed its prisoners. In a letter to the States she made recommendations regarding the welfare, treatment and segregation of inmates. She put forward many changes, including the separation of male and female prisoners, the tried from the untried, and prisoners held for debt. She also proposed reforms to the food, welfare and education of the incarcerated.
Governor's diary
Jersey Archive holds a diary written by the prison governor at the time that reveals that improvements were being implemented. it gives an insight into the lives or ordinary prisoners and includes their work on the prison treadmill.
One particularly interesting prisoner frequently mentioned in the diary was Betsey Cabot, a market trader and 'colourful character'. She is almost the only woman whom the governor mentions in the diary, which gives a rare glimpse into the treatment of women prisoners in the early part of the 19th century.
She was often violent and was subject to physical restraint, particularly when she screamed and kept the rest of the prisoners awake. She was once arrested before she had even been discharged for a previous offence after being found to have been stealing prison soap and making herself a petticoat out of a prison blanket.
Women at the hospital and the prison were not the only ones to have problems which may have been better understood in a different age. Clara Rousby was the young wife of William Wybert Rousby, owner of the Theatre ROyal, which became the Jersey Opera House.
She became bored with being left at home while her husband was at the theatre and took to joining him on the stage. For a time she was known as the 'Beautiful Mrs Rousby'. However, fame did not last and she was involved in several public scandals involving debt and drink.
The Rousbys had a daughter who lived with her maternal grandmother in England. After her grandmother's death she was placed in a convent. Mrs Rousby wished to reclaim her daughter and attempted to abduct her out of the window of the convent. She was caught and taken to court. She died aged 27 but her brief life was full of incident.
Gloster Vaults
On the corner of Seaton Place and Gloucester Street next door to the Opera House in No 35, a public house known as the Gloster Vaults. The building was erected on land bought in 1857 by James Dunn.
The landlady during the Occupation was Ruby May Fox. She was left a lifetime enjoyment of the property by Robert Reed, of 33 Gloucester Street, who had acquired the property from Elizabeth Brooking on 12 March 1927.
The pub made national headlines in the same year when Ethel Molly Gallichan, an assistant at the pub, married the Honourable Otway Randal Percy Oliver Plunkett, the son of Baron Louth. Miss Gallichan was given away by her father in a secret ceremony but the story leaked to the newspapers the next day and she became known as the barmaid who married a lord.
Notes and references
- ↑ The hospital road
- ↑ Although the name is found spelt Bartlett, it is likely that Bartlet was the original spelling of the surname of her English husband. By the time she wrote her will she referred to herself as Mary Bartlett
- ↑ She actually came to Jersey to recuperate from an illness
- ↑ Elizabeth Fry was not part of the Frys of Bristol, the chocolate-making family. She was born Elizabeth Gurney and married Joseph Fry, a banker and a cousin of the Bristol Frys, but not involved in the business in any way
