BUSKERS in Jersey

BUSKERS are usually anonymous but there have in the past been several well known street performers in Jersey.

They have often had a difficult relationship with the authorities and sometimes the public.

“Tommy” Bagwell the blind barrel organ player was granted a licence in 1907 by the Constable to play in the streets of St Helier.

Jersey born “Tommy” had been blinded whilst working on the quay so his work-mates had subscribed to provide the instrument and he became a popular sight and sound around the Town.

In fact he became something of an entertainer and raised funds for charitable events such as the “picnic for the blind” in 1909.

In 1917 he suffered serious injuries when a horse bolted in Mulcaster Street and collided with him and the organ and he spent some time in hospital. He died in 1936 aged 81.

 

He was not Jersey’s only blind organ player. There were complaints in 1888 of such a player who “perambulated” the streets of St. Helier accompanied by a little girl “eliciting alms from passers-by” and he had no permit.

This was probably Anthanese Marcourf (?) who was already “an old familiar face” in the “Court of Corrective Police” in 1884 and was well known in Guernsey too. He was usually charged with vagrancy and begging in the streets “without visible means of support.”

Typically he was fined 10 shillings or 2 days in prison.

 

Two Italian organ-grinders had been “found begging” in 1879 and had insulted people who refused to contribute. They duly appeared before the court to be fined the usual amount but presumably they would have been deported too.

 

In April 1857 it was reported that 3 barrel organs were playing such tunes as “Home Sweet Home” and “Cherry Ripe” to an appreciative crowd outside 21 Hue Street but the nature of the occasion was not clear.

Coincidentally or otherwise 3 barrel organs were offered for sale at auction the same year but there was a wedding reception in Hilgrove Street in 1862 and a barrel organ was stationed at the doorway “to crown the day at the home of the happy pair.”

However, it was not a Jersey person turning the handle but “a grinning Italian who owned the instrument of torture…”

 

Cesidio Volante was another Italian musician who arrived in the 1880s and was not deported although his career started with the usual difficulties. Thus he appeared before the Magistrate for playing “in the streets of St. Helier without the necessary permission” in February 1888.

 

It must have been a very fragile way to make a living because the Viscount had been ordered in 1883 to dispose of the property of Antonioni Qazy the “peripatetic organ grinder” who had died without next of kin and he was also instructed to pay for the burial.

But Cesidio, more usually known as Joseph, somehow survived and founded a Volante dynasty which thrives in Jersey. When he died aged 61 at his Castle Street home in 1923 after a long illness the JEP obituary described him as “the Italian organ grinder, a popular and well known figure in this town.”

It continued “there is an old saying that it’s the poor that help the poor” and how he lent the organ during the Great War “to swell various charities.”

His Italian born widow Ann re-married and died in 1968.

 

There were visits from German bands and other musicians and entertainers trying to make a living throughout the century so it was inevitable that the authorities would try to exercise more control. They also saw it as a tax raising opportunity.

 

By 1899 it was being proposed that every show man, acrobat, player, accordionist or street musician or other performer should pay 1 shilling per week for a licence. Thus a German band consisting of 9 musicians would have to pay 9 shillings. But the proposal, designed to contribute to the £800 p.a. granted by the States was viewed as “humiliating, mean and unworthy of a legislative assembly” by critics.

The Constable of St Helier was reported ;

“It is absurd that the owner of a performing bear or an organ-grinder must pay to the Bailiff and every member of a German Band who would play the National anthem in the streets…”

 

And so the discussion continues into the 21^st century and there is not a barrel-organ to be seen or heard on the streets of Jersey today….