Let’s visit our Museum site |16 April 2021
The National Museum of History
To commemorate the International Monuments and Sites Day which falls on April 18, Tony Mathiot, on behalf of The National Museums, takes us on a tour of the Museum site in Victoria.
But, what a sight!
Even before you enter the museum building, there are a few monuments outside which will greatly enrich your knowledge of Seychelles’ history. At the entrance of the museum you will find yourself facing the turn-of-the-century Diamond Jubilee Fountain.
The Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee Fountain which was created by Messrs. Doulton of London (established in 1815) was unveiled, rather belatedly, on January 5, 1900 by Lady Sweet-Escott, the wife of the administrator to celebrate 60 years of Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1897). She was actually crowned on June 28, 1838. When she died on January 22, 1901, she had completed the longest reign – 63 years – of any other English monarchy.
Besides our own town, her memory is enshrined in a waterfall and a lake in Africa, a river and a city state in Australia, a mountain in north western Burma, an island in the Arctic Ocean and the giant water-lily of tropical South America, Victoria amazonica.
The jubilee drinking fountain is made of porcelain decorated with elaborate patterns, with a water tap and a basin on three sides. It is surmounted by a 30cm statuette of Queen Victoria which is believed to be the smallest representation of Her Majesty’s likeness in the world – in diametrical contrast to the life-size one that stands on Sir Newton William Street in Port Louis in Mauritius.
In 1977 the authorities, appreciating the antiquarian artistic value of this unique statuette, decided that it would be circumspect to remove it and place it in secured safety inside the National History Museum (which was then in the Carnegie building opposite). Few people walking past the Supreme Court building in Victoria noticed that the statuette of the diminutive Empress was actually missing.
Well, then again not many people apart from the curio vendors along Independence Avenue knew that you could slake your thirst at the quaint little basins!
After 16 years of neglect it was decided that the Jubilee Fountain should be repaired and restored. In early 1993 an American artist and ceramicist Lucy Hickerson (1941-2019) and a curio stall owner Senville Henry undertook the painstaking task of restoring the porcelain ware; cleaning the tiles and removing and repairing the pipe work.
A replica of the statuette in alabaster was moulded by the resident British sculptor Tom Bowers (1936-2021) to replace the original one. It was a donation by the British Government on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
The fountain was ‘re-inaugurated’ at 5.30pm on Wednesday June 2, 1993.
The Victorian era is long over. But this little monument will remain a cherished treasure here in Victoria for succeeding generations of Seychellois people to inherit and to remind them that once upon a time our resplendent islands were sapphires among jewels in the crown of the Hanoverian Monarchy!
Now let’s go to the right of the museum building where we will find the Pierre Poivre Bust. It was originally located a few metres back facing towards the north. Cinnamon! That most beloved of all our spices. It is indeed de rigeur for any Creole curry that is cooked with coconut milk to be flavoured with a few cinnamon leaves. It grows as wild vegetation from the coastal plateaux of Mahé to the mountain summits of Praslin and La Digue. Yes, it’s impossible to think of our islands without the spicy cinnamon.
And yet it is not endemic to the Seychelles. We owe the blessing of cinnamomumzeylanicum to Pierre Poivre (1719-1786), a French naturalist and administrator of Mauritius and Reunion (1767 to 1773) whose daring disposition and strong-willed character has made him a redoubtable figure in the history of Seychelles and one of the most chivalrous men of his age.
He grew up in Lyon where he spent most of his childhood in his father’s shop. At 16 years he joined the Missionaries of St Joseph, an order of Jansenist convictions founded by a 17th century surgeon Jacques Crenet (1603-1666) to recruit missionaries for oriental countries. At twenty, he joined the Societé des Mission Etrangères de Paris, founded in 1663 by Mgr Francis Pallu. His keenness for learning and extroverted disposition made him an eligible candidate to disseminate the doctrines of the Roman Catholic abroad.
So in January 1741, the young vivacious seminarian travelled to Macao which was then ruled by Manchus in the Ta Ch’ing Dynasty. However, Pierre Poivre was soon to be in a troublesome state of affairs. Since 1722 with the death of K’ang-Hi, Christianism was in a precarious situation that saw the expulsion of priests. Emperor Yung-Tcheng was hostile to foreign missionaries. When he arrived at Canton in the South of China, Poivre was wrongfully imprisoned, a victim of gross iniquity. It was months later in early 1745 that he was freed and decided to return to France.
During the journey home his boat, the Dauphin, was attacked by two English ships – Deptford and Preston – and in the ensuing battle, his right arm was so badly injured that it had to be amputated later. In 1749, he left France to travel extensively abroad. Being an avid botanist he brought shipments of spice plants from places he visited to Ile de France (Mauritius).
During the 18th century when spice was a rare and precious commodity, the Dutch occupied Indonesia, moluccas (known as the spice islands) and Ceylon, the original source of cinnamon. In 1767, Pierre Poivre was appointed Intendant of Isle Bourbon and Isle de France.
As European demand for spices soared and prices escalated, the Dutch luxuriated in the triumph of becoming Europe’s most important trade power and exerted tyranny over their jealous competitors. The death penalty was imposed on clandestine importers of spices from the Dutch East Indies.
But Pierre Poivre was determined to break the Dutch monopoly on spices. In fact, his ambition was to duplicate the exploits of the Dutch in the Indian Ocean where the trade of spices was a primary source of colonial wealth.
In 1771, in brazen defiance of the death sentence, he personally undertook a couple of expeditions to the Dutch East Indies and managed to smuggle out samples of spices plants and most important of all, cinnamon seedlings which he brought back to Mauritius where he had already created the Jardins des Pamplemousses, with the help of the Naturalist Philibert Commerson (1727-1773). Early in 1770, he had encouraged Brayer du Barré, a former French Minister, to come to Seychelles to start a small spice garden on St Anne Island. That project which constituted the first establishment in Seychelles came to no avail for various reasons among which were Barré’s unbridled enthusiasm to engage himself in many other commercial ventures to the detriment of the spices and because the attitude of the administrator of the settlement was not particularly congenial to him. As for Poivre, he was resolutely committed to growing spices in Seychelles. Upon learning that on Mahé, the salubrious climate and the soil composition were propitious for a spice garden, he dispatched his most trusted agent Antoine Gillot, accompanied by forty workers and a small contingent of slaves. The spice garden Gillot created was situated at Anse Royale in the South of Mahé. It was called Jardin du Roi the king being of course Louis XV. It was 1772, sixteen years after the Seychelles had been taken possession of by the French. Cloves, nutmegs, pepper and cinnamon grew and flourished for sometime until one day in May 1780 when the spice garden was deliberately destroyed by a monumental act of blunder. The commandant of Seychelles, Charles Routier de Romainville mistook an approaching French ship for an English one and ordered that the valuable spice garden be burnt completely to prevent the enemy from acquiring the precious spices if the English succeeded in capturing the island. Indeed, it was a preposterous calamity! The conflagration destroyed the entire spice garden but as good luck would have it, bulbul (merl) blue footed pigeon (pizon olande) had already propagated cinnamon seeds in the hills of Mahé where soon after, cinnamon trees in resplendent profusion became part of the natural scrubland vegetation of the entire island.
It was in 1908 that Seychelles exported its first cargo of 740,123 kilos of cinnamon at R50,166. By 1921, with a population of just above 25,000, Seychelles had 67 cinnamon leaf oil distilleries and all of the crown lands on Mahé and Praslin were leased for cinnamon cultivation.
On October 2, 1972, the year that Ceylon became the republic of Sri Lanka, this bust of Pierre Poivre was inaugurated in the grounds of the Supreme Court building to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the introduction of cinnamon to Seychelles by a man who never even set foot on our shores!
Today, our passion for cinnamon is as fiery as the flames that destroyed the spice garden of Jardin du Roi more than two hundred years ago.
Well, what do you really know about the Victoria Clock tower?
Yes, it is indisputably the most potent historical feature that dates back to the colonial era.
In 1901 when Queen Victoria died, Seychelles which formed part of the Vast British Empire was ruled as a dependency of Mauritius and Ernest Bickham Sweet-Escott (1857-1941) was its administrator. He proposed that a building which would serve as a community hall be erected in Victoria as a memorial to the late Queen.
The legislative council voted unanimously for the sum of R10,000 to be raised for the building. This was to be paid for partly by public subscription and partly by government. Takamaka donated R44.75, Cascade donated R100.25, Baie Lazare donated R79.25… In 1901, the population of Seychelles stood at 19,343 and most inhabitants led a hardscrabble life as plantation workers or fishermen. The average salary for an estate labourer was R6 per month. Because of the boom in the vanilla industry which was selling at R32.00 per kilo, it was only the dozen or so landowners who could afford to make patriotic contributions to the fund, but then again not with the philanthropic largess of today’s business entrepreneurs who are contributing thousands even millions of rupees towards Covid-19 fund! Fortunately indeed! Because today, we would certainly not be in possession of our little Big Ben!
By January 1902, the sum collected from all the districts was R3,233.81, woefully inadequate. Less than half of the amount required for the proposed building. Almost immediately Sweet Escott came up with an alternative idea that his administration enthusiastically approved. And in June, the Queen Victoria memorial committee under the chairmanship of Alferd Herchenroder (1865-1932) who was judge at that time, unanimously adopted the resolution “that a clock and clock tower be erected in Victoria in loving memory of her late most gracious Majesty Queen Victoria”. The Legislative council gave approval for the available sum of R6,447.62 to be used as funds for the memorial. After studying drawings and diagrams of various clocks and clock towers, Sweet Escott opted for one similar to that which had been placed at the entrance of Victoria Station on Vauxhall Bridge road in London in 1892 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee. In July, at the request of Ernest Sweet Escott, the secretary of the colonies authorised the crown agents in London to purchase the clock tower.
The clock tower, made of cast iron, was executed by Messrs. Gillet & Johnson of Corydon (established in 1834), England. It arrived dismantled in nine cases by mail steamer – but not all together. On February 11, 1903, seven cases arrived, the other two having been mistakenly unloaded at Mauritius! They arrived a month later.
Naturally, the clock tower needed to stand in the middle of town, and the centre of our little capital was of course at the cross roads where the four roads coming from South, East, North and West meet and intersect: Royal Street, State House Avenue, Albert Street and Long Pier Road.
The erection of the clock tower took nine days to complete. Winches and pulleys were used to hoist, assemble and connect the various parts. Measuring 25 feet in height, and 3 feet by 3 feet in width, with each dial being 2½ feet in diametre, it was no small feat.
The last rivet of the clock tower was driven on March 27.
And so it must have been an excited crowd of inhabitants who gathered there in town on that Wednesday afternoon of April 1, 1903.
Magnificently draped with the flags of the United Kingdom, the clock tower was unveiled by Ernest Bickham Sweet Escott who solemnly declared it a memorial to Queen Victoria Alexandrina.
There was no pageantry, no flourish of trumpets. Nevertheless, the ceremony was one of stateliness and dignified splendour. After the administrator’s magniloquent speech, the crowd applauded and cheered in patriotic elation.
The clock tower which was originally black was painted silver in 1935 to commemorate George V’s Silver Jubilee. And did it chime? No…
Apparently, since the very first day, the apparatus that should have struck the bell never worked. The sound of its bell was first heard on September 17, 1999 after the clock tower had undergone a major reparation and restoration work that included the replacement of its spring-driven mechanism by an electronic one, which interestingly enough was obtained from the still existing makers of the clock tower, Messrs Gillet & Johnson.
In the early 1960s a mechanic named Gilbert Palmyre (1912-1992) was assigned the noble responsibility of maintaining the clock tower, a task he fulfilled with devotion and meritorious assiduity. In 1978 he bequeathed the crank to William Lespoir, another mechanic barely out of his teens who cared for our beloved Lorloz with an almost proprietary affection for 30 years.
Now let’s see what story our Museum Building itself has to tell us!
The Supreme Court Building is indisputably the oldest building in the Seychelles. It was constructed in 1885 during the time of Civil Commissioner, Arthur Cecil Stuart Barclay (1843-1890), to provide accommodations for the New Oriental Bank Company.
Pursuant to an agreement with the Government, it was the company itself which undertook the erection of the building – and in order to gain space, a large portion of sea land had to be reclaimed. The extent of land on which the building was situated was 447 feet long, 292 feet broad at the wide end, and 113 broad at the narrow end. Although the land was raised considerably, at high tide part of it was underwater some 5 feet and was hardly dry at low tide. The building was constructed with limestone coral and timber. Ironwork was largely used in the construction. The roof was covered with red tiles and the pillars of the gallery were of iron. Its estimated cost was R120,000. A stipulation in the lease agreement was that the bank paid the government a nominal rent of R50 per annum.
In mid-1887 the New Oriental Bank moved in the building which a shareholder of the company considered “too large for present or probably any future requirements of a banking institution...” However, a few years later, on June 17, 1892, the bank closed. The land reverted to the government, and the building which the Bank was entitled to remove was sold to the government for R30,000.
In 1893, during the administration of Thomas Risely Griffith, the Eastern Telegraph Company rented a section of the building to use as offices until August of 1894. The company was laying submarine cables to connect Seychelles with Mauritius and Zanzibar.
Late in 1894, the Treasury and Customs Department offices were transferred to the ground floor of the right wing of the building. The Judicial department was transferred to the entire upper portion of the building. This consisted of the Judge’s Court, the Judge’s Chambers and the Magistrate’s Court. The Police Department was located beneath, on the ground floor of the left wing. In order to accommodate the premises to the new requirements, certain alterations and modifications were effected. Wooden partitions which divided the upper portion were removed and glass doors were installed to all the upper external openings of the Courts and offices. A major additional feature was a stone staircase at the back of the building to form the entrance to the Judicial Department.
For these alterations and modifications, the Legislative Council approved a special vote of R2,500. It was here on the first floor of this building that Sir Ernest Bickham Sweet-Escott (1857-1941) took his oath of office as the Governor of Seychelles on November 9, 1903. For many years during the 20th century, the building was known as the Treasury and Courthouse Building. In 1959, Barclays Bank opened its first branch in Seychelles on the ground floor of the building.
In 1984, it was declared a National Monument!
The last judicial case was heard on June 7, 2013 before The Supreme Court and other Magistrate Court moved into the new Palais De Justice at Perseverance. Between 2015 and 2017 the building underwent extensive renovations which did not alter its original architecture. Work was carried out by The Green Island Construction Company (GICC) LTD.
Now, you may go inside where you will discover more.
