Oxenford House School in St Lawrence, circa 1900. The house was demolished in the 1960s to make way for a housing estate

SOME time ago we showed this photograph of Oxenford House School, St Lawrence, sent to us by the Channel Islands Great War Study Group.

When this first appeared in the JEP, we quoted from the St Lawrence Millennium Book, as follows: ‘The most important school in St Lawrence was the one known as Oxenford House School, or in latter years as Davey’s, after the family who ran it.

‘It was founded in 1824 and finally closed in 1927. In the Census of 1841 it was at Eden Grove with Thomas Hoskins as schoolmaster, with 24 scholars on site, including 15 boarders from outside the Island.

‘Oxenford House had a high reputation locally and overseas, and many leading families of the Island sent their sons to this school. Many day pupils missed full-time education as they were kept away from school during the planting and digging seasons.

The building is demolished and its site marked by Oxenford Close, on the west side of the main St Lawrence – St John road, south of Carrefour Selous and north of Three Oaks.

We have since heard from Major Chris Davey of St Aubin, who is the great-grandson of the John Edwin Peter Davey referred to and who gave us this further information:
‘The photo was taken in 1899 or 1900 and John Davey is the white bearded figure standing central in the porch.

‘My father, Basil, is the little fellow in white sitting at the feet of my great grandmother with, to her left, his mother also in white. Her husband, Charles, stands behind her.

‘My father distinguished himself in the First World War, but on his return made the choice not to join the school staff. He rose to General and, on his retirement to Jersey, became a Jurat in 1954 until his early death in 1959.’

From the same era – turn of the 19th and 20th centuries – we have also been sent from Barrie Bertram an illustrated prospectus for the school and we include some excerpts with this article.

The Daveys are a military family – Chris Davey served in BAOR and in Northern Ireland, their son, Dominic, is a cavalry officer who has served tours in Iraq and Bosnia (with Afghanistan to follow), and their daughter, Colette, is currently serving in Helmand province, Afghanistan, as an Army doctor.

Chris Davey continues: ‘When Charles closed the school, following his wife’s death, he sold it to the Mesneys – Mr Mesney was a successful butcher in town.

On his death it fell to his daughter, who sold it in 1962 to a developer who promised to turn it into an old people’s home. The ink was barely dry on the contract when he sent the bulldozers in and flattened the whole school, leaving just the stables, which are all that now remain as very attractive flats.

‘The rest of the property was turned into what may now be viewed as Oxenford Close.’