Auxiliary female teachers during WW1

My aunty recently sent me the above photo cut out from the Temps Passe section in the Jersey Evening Post. It includes my father’s grandmother, Edith May Le Marquand.  I haven’t done a lot of research on this side of the family as I know that there has been a quite a bit of research done already.

Whenever you are passed a piece of family history it is always interesting, when it includes a photo of an ancestor it is like gold dust! My grandmother must have kept this in her belongings of treasured snippets of information. My aunty has come across it and kindly sent it onto me. And what a fascinating piece it is too!

Here are the words in the article that were written underneath:

This article gives you quite a few clues to explore further or details that may confirm what you already knew or were wanting to find out:

• great grandmothers name – Edith Le Marquand
• her job – she was an auxiliary teacher! I had heard it on the grapevine but had yet to see any evidence of this
• the school – St. Ouen’s School (Primary) – this would make sense that she taught in St. Ouen’s parish as she lived there at Les Sixbulls when she married Alfred Boucheré. It would have been unlikely for auxiliary teachers to travel to a school on the other side of the island like they do now.
• date of photo 1916 – as my grandmother was born c.1895, this would make her about 21 years old. Which doesn’t quite fit in with her being the lady on the far left as the article says. So which one she is exactly still remains a mystery…
• the event ‘Our day’ – I hadn’t heard of this event before, so that is something new for me and my records. The flags are another lovely detail of how the day was presented
• the returning War fiance – I know now that my great grandfather firstly went to war, and secondly where he was posted, Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia in Greek means ‘land between rivers’, and was the region now occupied by modern Iraq, eastern Syria, southeastern Turkey, and Southwest Iran.

To conclude, it makes you wonder how many more fascinating pieces of newspaper articles are out there, still hidden away in someone’s treasure box with some amazing snippet of information in them yet to be revealed.

Should any of this information be incorrect or you can provide more than please fell free to comment below or contact me. Anything extra from readers is always a bonus!