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From Camden to a lab Halkett Place and a family of five living at 1 Claremont Terrace, photographs from the 19th century tell the story of Jersey's first resident Official Analyst.
The Société Jersiaise's Photographic Archive includes more than 100,000 images on a wide variety of subjects.
As part of a new series with Express, 'Snapshots In Time', Société will be sharing the images that it finds most "captivating", and the stories behind them each month.
In the second instalment today, they tell the story of Jersey's first offiicial analyst...
Frederick Woodland Toms was born in Camden in 1856 and moved to Jersey in 1884.
That same year, Frederick met Emily Hopwood, whom he married three years later on 4 April 1887. They lived and raised their three sons at 1 Claremont Terrace in St. Helier.
Pictured: A family portrait of the Toms, from left Arthur, Humphrey, Emily, Frazer and Frederick.
Prior to moving to the island, Frederick had studied at the City of London School for two years before moving to the Royal College of Science to study Chemistry for three years.
In 1878, he was elected Associate of the Institute of Chemistry when it was founded in 1878 and became a fellow in 1883. He was also a founding member of the Society of Chemical Industry and a member of Public Analysts from 1884.
In June of that year, he became the first resident Official Analyst to the States of Jersey, a position he held for 47 years until his retirement in 1931.
Pictured: Emily Toms knitting.
In his role, Frederick focused on the analysis of food, water supplies, gas, drugs and building materials. He also investigated soils and fertilisers under the intensive system of farming and market gardening prevailing on the island. Much of this work was carried out under the Jersey Royal Agricultural Society.
His professional experiences and experimental work in Jersey were mainly recorded in a large series of annual reports but he continued to contribute a number of papers to journals too where he wrote on guns, gunpowder and the public and private importance of sanitation in Jersey. He also made a significant paper researching vraic use in agriculture which can be found at the Société Jersiaise library.
Considering the knowledge at the time of Frederick, where electricity was a recently introduced facility only available in few households, public health a luxurious ideal and scientific farming not yet a reality, his scientific contributions were extremely significant.
Pictured: Frazer, Humphrey and Arthur Woodland Toms sat on the back porch of 1 Claremont Terrace.
Frederick’s laboratory was based in Halkett Place in St. Helier. He spent much of his time here unless he was carrying out official duties at various locations on the island. His laboratory team included; an assistant, Frank Woodcock; sanitary engineers who would have carried out much of the collecting and testing of specimens and issuing certificates of acceptability; and an office boy who ran errands.
The Toms family history was documented by Frederick and Emily’s eldest son, Frazer Toms, who was born in 1888. There was little about family life and much about his father’s work. Frazer did attend Victoria College growing up in Jersey and later went on to earn a scholarship to Jesus College in Oxford.
The family home is some of the only descriptions given of the personal life of the Toms. 1 Claremont Terrace where they resided had a number of domestic servants employed to maintain the house, including a wash lady, a seamstress, a cleaner, a gardener and a resident maid.
Pictured: The rear of 1 Claremont Terrace, the three men on the porch could be Frederick, Humphrey and Frazer.
Frederick died in 1938 died at the age of 82 and was buried in St. Saviour’s Church yard. His wife, Emily Toms, died a few years later in 1942 and was buried in England where she had resided at the beginning of the German occupation of Jersey in 1940.
This story was told as part of a series in collaboration with the Société Jersiaise. To find out more about the Photographic Archive, visit the Société's website.
Pictured top: Portrait of Frederick Woodland Toms in his laboratory at Halkett Place
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