It is extremely rare that Meetings of the States Assembly take place outside of the Chamber.
But on this day (March 21) in 1907, a special sitting took place in the east of the Island at Mont Orgueil.
For hundreds of years prior, the Castle had been under the ownership of the British Crown, but by the second half of the 19th Century had fallen into a state of decay.
So, it was decided that the running of Mont Orgueil be handed over to the people of Jersey and then Bailiff, William Venables Vernon, wrote to the Lieutenant Governor, Major General Hugh S Gough, requesting a ceremony to mark the occasion, with the date of King Edward VII’s birthday being chosen for the celebration.
Members met at Gorey Castle where the Lieutenant Governor delivered a speech. It was agreed that the day-to-day management of Mont Orgueil would be passed to the States of Jersey, with the Crown retaining ownership and the ability to repossess it in times of national emergency – which happened during the First World War.
Minutes from that Meeting state: “The States having assembled on the glacis of Mont Orgueil castle, proceeded to the ceremony of delivery of the keys of the castle by His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor to the Bailiff and then attended the celebration of the anniversary of the birth of his Majesty, and this for the purposes of the act of the Assembly of the 24th current, approving the report of the committee appointed on April 29, 1905 regarding the transfer of the said Castle to the States, dated the same day.”
It wouldn’t be until 1996 that full ownership of Gorey Castle was transferred to the Island.
Elizabeth Castle
A similar outside-the-Chamber Meeting of the States took place in 1923 at Elizabeth Castle.
According to the minutes that Meeting was held to “perform the ceremony of delivering the keys of the Castle by His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor to the Bailiff, for the purposes of the Act of the Assembly of the 10 April, 1923, adopting all arrangements for the ceremony of the transfer by the Crown of the Castle to the States”.
The guardianship of Elizabeth Castle passed to the States having been under the control of the Lieutenant Governor since its build in 1594.
Full ownership of the Castle was transferred to the States in 1996 at the same time as Mont Orgueil.
Other Sittings outside the Chamber
Liberation Day
The traditional Liberation Day sitting is not a typical Meeting of the Assembly in that only one item of business appears on the agenda – that of the Liberation Day speech.
Nevertheless, the Liberation Day sitting will almost always be held in the Chamber.
However, to mark Liberation 70 in 2015, the People’s Park served as the focal point of the celebrations, with a makeshift Chamber being put on the stage and the sitting being shown on screens to the hundreds in attendance.
A message from Queen Elizabeth II was read by Royal representative the Countess of Wessex, part of which read: “Today is a day for all the survivors of that generation and for the people of Jersey, young and old, to come together to give thanks for the success of the Allied Forces and the Liberation of the Island and to pass on the spirit of reconciliation to future generations.”
The-late St Clement Constable Len Norman was chosen to deliver the Liberation address. He said: “Today we celebrate Liberation Day. Yesterday, we celebrated Victory in Europe Day when Winston Churchill uttered those immortal words “And our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today”. 70 years later those words still send a shiver down my spine. For those who heard them in 1945, what wonderful emotions they must have experienced.”
Fort Regent
The Covid pandemic meant working practices were thrown into chaos at short notice and the work of the States Assembly was no different.
Almost five years ago to the day, a strange hybrid sitting of the States was held – with around half of the Assembly gathering at Fort Regent, with desks carefully spaced apart to match the social distancing guidelines which were just starting to come into force.
Meanwhile, the other Members attended remotely, with specially rigged television screens at the front of the Fort’s Gloucester Hall.
Despite being relatively successful, the hybrid Fort sittings would be a one-and-done scenario, as just a few days later work-from-home guidance was issued and the Island was plunged into lockdown.
Next blog: how the States Assembly continued during Covid.