JERSEY, EARLS OF. Sir Edward Villiers (c. 1656-1711), son of Sir Edward Villiers (1620-1689), of Richmond, Surrey, was created Baron Villiers and Viscount Villiers in 1691 and earl of Jersey in 1697. His grandfather, Sir Edward Villiers (c. 1585-1626), master of the mint and president of Munster, was half-brother of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, and of Christopher Villiers, 1st earl of Anglesey; his sister was Elizabeth Villiers, the mistress of William III., and afterwards countess of Orkney. Villiers was knight-marshal of the royal household in succession to his father; master of the horse to Queen Mary; and lord chamberlain to William III. and Queen Anne. In 1696 he represented his country at the congress of Ryswick; he was ambassador at the Hague, and after becoming an earl was ambassador in Paris. In 1699 he was made secretary of state for the southern department, and on three occasions he was one of the lords justices of England. In 1704 he was dismissed from office by Anne, and after this event he was concerned in some of the Jacobite schemes. He died on the 25th of August 1711. The 2nd earl was his son William (c. 1682-1721), an adherent of the exiled house of Stuart, and the 3rd earl was the latter’s son William (d. 1769), who succeeded his kinsman John Fitzgerald (c. 1692-1766) as 6th Viscount Grandison. The 3rd earl’s son, George Bussy, the 4th earl (1735-1805), held several positions at the court of George III., and on account of his courtly manners was called the “prince of Maccaronies.” The 4th earl’s son, George, 5th earl of Jersey (1773-1859), one of the most celebrated fox-hunters of his time and a successful owner of racehorses, married Sarah Sophia (1785-1867), daughter of John Fane, 10th earl of Westmorland, and granddaughter of Robert Child, the banker. She inherited her grandfather’s great wealth, including his interest in Child’s bank, and with her husband took the name of Child-Villiers. Since this time the connexions of the earls of Jersey with Child’s bank has been maintained. Victor Albert George Child-Villiers (b. 1845) succeeded his father George Augustus (1808-1859), 6th earl, who had only held the title for three weeks, as 7th earl of Jersey in 1859. This nobleman was governor of New South Wales from 1890 to 1893.
JERSEY, the largest of the Channel Islands, belonging to Great Britain. Its chief town, St Helier, on the south coast of the island, is in 49° 12′ N., 2° 7′ W., 105 m. S. by E. of Portland Bill on the English coast, and 24 m. from the French coast to the east. Jersey is the southernmost of the more important islands of the group. It is of oblong form with a length of 10 m. from east to west and an extreme breadth of 6¼ m. The area is 28,717 acres, or 45 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 52,576.
The island reaches its greatest elevation (nearly 500 ft.) in the north, the land rising sharply from the north coast, and displaying bold and picturesque cliffs towards the sea. The east, south and west coasts consist of a succession of large open bays, shallow and rocky, with marshy or sandy shores separated by rocky headlands. The principal bays are Grève au Lançons, Grève de Lecq, St John’s and Bouley Bays on the north coast; St Catherine’s and Grouville Bays on the east; St Clement’s, St Aubin’s and St Brelade’s Bays on the south; and St Ouen’s Bay, the wide sweep of which occupies nearly the whole of the west coast. The sea in many places has encroached greatly on the land, and sand drifts have been found troublesome, especially on the west coast. The surface of the country is broken by winding valleys having a general direction from north to south, and as they approach the south uniting so as to form small plains. The lofty hedges which bound the small enclosures into which Jersey is divided, the trees and shrubberies which line the roads and cluster round the uplands and in almost every nook of the valleys unutilized for pasturage or tillage, give the island a luxuriant appearance, neutralizing the bare effect of the few sandy plains and sand-covered hills. Fruits and flowers indigenous to warm climates grow freely in the open air. The land, under careful cultivation, is rich and productive, the soil being generally a deep loam, especially in the valleys, but in the west shallow, light and sandy. The subsoil is usually gravel, but in some parts an unfertile clay. Some two-thirds of the total area is under cultivation, great numbers of cattle being pastured, and much market gardening practised. The potato crop is very large. The peasants take advantage of every bit of wall and every isolated nook of ground for growing fruit trees. Grapes are ripened under glass; oranges can be grown in sheltered situations, but the most common fruits are apples, which are used for cider, and pears. A manure of burnt sea-weed (vraic) is generally used. The pasturage is very rich, and is much improved by the application of this manure to the surface. The breed of cattle is kept pure by stringent laws against the importation of foreign animals. The milk is used almost exclusively to manufacture butter. The cattle are always housed in winter, but remain out at night from May till October. There was formerly a small black breed of horses peculiar to the island, but horses are now chiefly imported from France or England. Pigs are kept principally for local consumption, and only a few sheep are reared. Fish are not so plentiful as round the shores of Guernsey, but mackerel, turbot, cod, mullet and especially the conger eel are abundant at the Minquiers. There is a large oyster bed between Jersey and France, but partly on account of over-dredging the supply is not so abundant as formerly. There is a great variety of other shell fish. The fisheries, ship-building and boat-building employ many of the inhabitants. Kelp and iodine are manufactured from sea-weed. The principal exports are granite, fruit and vegetables (especially potatoes), butter and cattle; and the chief imports coal and articles of human consumption. Communications with England are maintained principally from Southampton and Weymouth, and there are regular steamship services from Granville and St Malo on the French coast. The Jersey railway runs west from St Helier round St Aubin’s Bay to St Aubin, and continues to Corbière at the south-western extremity of the island; and the Jersey eastern railway follows the southern and eastern coasts to Gorey. The island is intersected with a network of good roads.
Jersey is under a distinct and in several respects different form of administrative government from Guernsey and the smaller islands included in the bailiwick of Guernsey. For its peculiar constitution, system of justice, ecclesiastical arrangements and finance, see [Channel Islands]. There are twelve parishes, namely St Helier, Grouville, St Brelade, St Clement, St John, St Laurence, St Martin, St Mary, St Ouen, St Peter, St Saviour and Trinity. The population of the island nearly doubled between 1821 and 1901, but decreased from 54,518 to 52,576 between 1891 and 1901.
The history of Jersey is treated under [Channel Islands]. Among objects of antiquarian interest, a cromlech near Mont Orgueil is the finest of several examples. St Brelade’s church, probably the oldest in the island, dates from the 12th century; among the later churches St Helier’s, of the 14th century, may be mentioned. There are also some very early chapels, considered to date from the 10th century or earlier; among these may be noted the Chapelle-ès-Pêcheurs at St Brelade’s, and the picturesque chapel in the grounds of the manor of Rozel. The castle of Mont Orgueil, of which there are considerable remains, is believed to be founded upon the site of a Roman stronghold, and a “Caesar’s fort” still forms a part of it.
JERSEY CITY, a city and the county-seat of Hudson county, New Jersey, U.S.A., on a peninsula between the Hudson and Hackensack rivers at the N. and between New York and Newark bays at the S., opposite lower Manhattan Island. Pop. (1890), 163,003; (1900), 206,433, of whom 58,424 were foreign-born (19,314 Irish, 17,375 German, 4642 English, 3832 Italian, 1694 Russian, 1690 Scottish, 1643 Russian Poles, 1445 Austrian) and 3704 were negroes; (1910 census) 267,779. It is the eastern terminus of the Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley, the West Shore, the Central of New Jersey, the Baltimore & Ohio, the Northern of New Jersey (operated by the Erie), the Erie, the New York, Susquehanna & Western, and the New Jersey & New York (controlled by the Erie) railways, the first three using the Pennsylvania station; and of the little-used Morris canal. Jersey City is served by several inter-urban electric railways and by the tunnels of the Hudson & Manhattan railroad company to Dey St. and to 33rd St. and 6th Ave., New York City, and it also has docks of several lines of Transatlantic and coast steamers. The city occupies a land area of 14.3 sq. m. and has a water-front of about 12 m. Bergen Hill, a southerly extension of the Palisades, extends longitudinally through it from north to south. At the north end this hill rises on the east side precipitously to a height of nearly 200 ft.; on the west and south sides the slope is gradual. On the crest of the hill is the fine Hudson County Boulevard, about 19 m. long and 100 ft. wide, extending through the city and county from north to south and passing through West Side Park, a splendid county park containing lakes and a 70-acre playground. The water-front, especially on the east side, is given up to manufacturing and shipping establishments. In the hill section are the better residences, most of which are wooden and detached.
The principal buildings are the city hall and the court house. There are nine small city parks with an aggregate area of 39.1 acres. The city has a public library containing (1907) 107,600 volumes and an historical museum. At the corner of Bergen Ave. and Forrest St. is the People’s Palace, given in 1904 by Joseph Milbank to the First Congregational church and containing a library and reading-room, a gymnasium, bowling alleys, a billiard-room, a rifle-range, a roof-garden, and an auditorium and theatre; kindergarten classes are held and an employment bureau is maintained. Among the educational institutions are the German American school, Hasbrouck institute, St Aloysius academy (Roman Catholic) and St Peter’s college (Roman Catholic); and there are good public schools. Grain is shipped to and from Jersey City in large quantities, and in general the city is an important shipping port; being included, however, in the port of New York, no separate statistics are available. There are large slaughtering establishments, and factories for the refining of sugar and for the manufacture of tobacco goods, soap and perfumery, lead pencils, iron and steel, railway cars, chemicals, rubber goods, silk goods, dressed lumber, and malt liquors. The value of the city’s manufactured products increased from $37,376,322 in 1890 to $77,225,116 in 1900, or 106.6%; in 1905 the factory product alone was valued at $75,740,934, an increase of only 3.9% over the factory product in 1900, this small rate of increase being due very largely to a decline in the value of the products of the sugar and molasses refining industry. The value of the wholesale slaughtering and meat-packing product decreased from $18,551,783 in 1880 and $11,356,511 in 1890 to $6,243,217 in 1900—of this $5,708,763 represented wholesale slaughtering alone; in 1905 the wholesale slaughtering product was valued at $7,568,739.
In 1908 the assessed valuation of the city was $267,039,754. The city is governed by a board of aldermen and a mayor (elected biennially), who appoints most of the officials, the street and water board being the principal exception.