THE woman believed to be Jersey’s oldest resident, Rosalind Makin, died yesterday aged 105.

Mrs Makin, the mother of Airport director Mike Lanyon, was born in 1900 when Queen Victoria was still on the throne and most people spent their entire lives within a small radius of their homes.

Among the many events she witnessed in her long life was the departure of the SS Titanic on its maiden voyage, days before it sank in the Atlantic.

Mrs Makin, who also met Guglielmo Marconi, the engineer and inventor of the wireless, when he became friends with her father, had five children with her first husband, Sydney Lanyon.

She moved to Jersey 59 years ago with her second husband, Ted, and fell in love with the Island.

Mrs Makin celebrated her 105th birthday on 29 November last year at Maison de Ville.

Her son Mike, who is due to retire as Airport director in May, said his mother was a ‘remarkable and fantastic’ lady.

‘She was driving until she was 95 and it was only two years ago that she moved into a residential home,’ he said.