Winner in Portrait of Britain 2018 by Martin Toft

My portrait High Net Worth Individual has been selected as one of the winners in Portrait of Britain 2018 exhibition in association with The British Journal of Photography. You can see all the winning portraits on JCDecaux screens nationwide throughout the month of September as part of the biggest exhibition of contemporary portraiture in the UK. The portrait will also be will be featured in the first ever Portrait of Britain Book, published by Hoxton Mini Press with an introduction by Will Self at a launch on 6 September in London.

The portrait is of Stuart Weaving one of the original wealthy residents who came to the island of Jersey in the late 1960s and granted 1(1) (K) status requiring him to rent or buy properties above a set value in return for favourable tax arrangements. Jersey is a place that actively market itself as an ideal location for wealthy individuals to settle with their families and businesses. It’s worth noting that in 2017 Locate Jersey, the Government body set up to manage High Value Residency had 155 enquiries with 34 HVI applications approved - a significant increase compared with 2016.

The portrait is part of Masterplan - a five year collaborative project with Archisle and Photo-Archive Societe-Jersiaise using photography, film and archival research to tell the story of Jersey’s economic growth and development. #portraitofbritain2018#bjp1854#JCDecaux#hnwi#masterplanproject

http://gallery.portraitofbritain.uk

Stuart Weaving is a British expat from South Africa who came to live in Jersey in the late 1960s. The portrait is from a five-year project about Jersey’s economic growth and development in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Stuart Weaving is a British expat from South Africa who came to live in Jersey in the late 1960s. The portrait is from a five-year project about Jersey’s economic growth and development in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Dispatch #6: Brazil by Martin Toft

After an eventful 24 hours of having my iPhone stolen by someone else at the hotel I stayed at in Recife and spending the best part of a day at a police station, I have parked the car after driving over 4000 kilometers and instead flown to Belém at the Amazonian River basin - a further 2000 km up north visiting the last entrepôt in the Jersey – Canada – Brazil merchant trade triangle. In these parts of Brazil Apple products are luxury items and without the inconvenience of the usual sort of losing a mobile phone with all your contacts etc, it has been my compass and speech in one using Google maps and translator for finding locations and communicating with people. 

Beginning to slowly digest and reflect on the past three weeks spend travelling across the three states of Bahia, Alagoas and Pernumbuco in the heartland of colonial history searching for trade networks with Jersey merchants concerning the production of mainly sugar, tobacco, coffee, cacao and cotton - part of my project is looking at the different commodities exchanged in the export/import market that Charles Robin (and other Jersey cod-merchants) established as part of the Atlantic trade.  

In the early to mid-19th century Salvador was a world leading metropole operating on a larger scale than Rio de Janeiro and even New York.  On my way to Salvador I visited a cacao plantation in the area around Ilhéus, once one of Brazil's largest exporter of the cocoa bean and near the border between Muritiba and Mangaebeira I had a special tour by Gersia Silva, Marketing Manager of Fazenda Terra Danneman, or rather DANCO as it is known locally - one the largest tobacco plantations in Brazil specialising in producing the finest cigars and cigarillos in the world for mainly German, Austrian and Swiss markets. 

Its founder Geraldinho Dannemann arrived from Bremen in Germany and established his cigar factory in the province of Bahia in 1872 in Sao Felix on the bank of the river Rio Paraguaçu, connecting São Félix to its sister town of Cachoeira, a major gateway and trading route to the capital, Salvador, from where the sugar and tobacco were shipped to mainly Europe - and where Robin would be trading his cod-fish (interestingly enough Bremen was also a port that Robin traded with.) 

The Dannemann company is now part of a large Swiss corporation, BS Group (Burger Söhne AG) – a family owned multinational company that is manufacturing, marketing and selling high-end brands of, mainly tobacco and chocolate with production in over 10 different countries around the world.  The founder of Dannemann also included his family in the management of the business, like its current owner (founder of BS Group was Rudolph Burger a former farmer and timber merchant in 1864)  

Comparing it to the ownership and management of Charles Robin Company, it was a similar network of family and marriage ties that maintained control over the business until the financial crash of Jersey’s Savings Bank in 1886 that signalled the beginning of the end of the cod-fisheries in Gaspé by Jersey firms - although the Robin brand continued to trade up until 2006 under various ownerships and business guises. In fact, when I visited the Gaspé Peninsula in the summer of 2017, the Robin name is still visible across retail and tourism industries with numerous general stores and museums/sites branding it with the CRC logo. Part of my project’s conceptual underpinning is looking at how the Robin name and legacy are performed and presented all along the Bay of Chaleur. 

Depending on points of view and historical bias, those Canadians with French ancestry view Charles Robin as an evil imperialist who exploited the honest labour of the local fishermen. For Anglophile Canadians, and especially those with Channel Island connections, Robin was a brilliant entrepreneur and businessman who founded Canada’s second oldest incorporated company. What interests me is the space between fact and fiction where stories or myths are constantly re-told and re-invented.

Rosemary Ormer gives a detailed account in her book on Jersey- Gaspé fishery on how the management apex of the Jersey merchant triangle established power structures and created effective political strategies designed to enhance Jersey ability to influence the larger United Kingdom metropole through a network of business interests formed by merchants and the creation of the Chamber of Commerce. 

Ormer writes, ‘ The operation of the Chamber [of Commerce] provide a picture of Jersey mercantile interests at work at the ownership apex of the triangle as these interests sought to control as much as possible the larger world beyond the coasts of Jersey’

Even then Jersey’s relationship with the UK was vital to maintain some influence of the merchant triangle. The parallels with Brexit looming and Jersey’s frantic political and corporate diplomacy to protect its main industry (finance) from harm when Britain leaves the European Union is palpable.  Jersey’s business community in the 18th century understood perfectly well its vulnerabilities and used well rehearsed tactics to manipulate both political and economical upheaval by constantly ‘reminding its trading partners of both Jersey’s loyalty to the British crown and its geographical advantageous position close to the coast of France.’ (Ormer)

The Seaflower Venture project emerged from research into the origins of Jersey’s banking history undertaken as part of Masterplan a parallel project focusing on the story of the island’s finance industry. The island’s merchant trade, conducted across multiple outposts, can be seen as a blueprint for a future offshore financial services industry. 

From research earlier today in the public archives in the city of Belém I came across a glossy coffee table sized book (think Taschen) titled Belém da Sausada (Belém so Satisfied) produced in 1908 by the Governor of the State of Pará and his board of state executives. It was essentially a piece of marketing material produced to entice inward investment from international businessmen and corporations as well as targeting Europeans to emigrate to Brazil, or more precisely Pará.

Reading it was like browsing through a copy of Jersey Finance Limited’s annual edition, First For Finance on why Jersey is one of the world’s leading jurisdictions best equipped with managing wealthy individuals, families and corporations assets and investment portfolios. This oversized sales catalogue made many assertions beginning with a quote from Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian explorer and exponent of Romantic philosophy and science who in 1800 wrote from his travels in Latin America that: ‘In the near future the Amazon region will be a centre of civilization and the store house of the world’ The Governor and his board of directors than carry on with an extraordinary estimation that ‘this marvellous district, honey-combed in every direction by fertilizing rivers will some day contain a prosperous population of 20-30 million souls. Indeed 200 million men could live comfortably in this glorious land.’ 

Of course, this prophesy was wildly exaggerated and the State of Pará today have a population of around 7.5 million. The sales pitch ends with a poetic rendition on how money has no domicile using flow of water as an analogue for flow of capital - which in a kind of funny way could also describe how offshore finance works today, ‘money has no home. It circulates all over the world like those endless and erratic currents in the ocean, which are somehow or other ever drawn to shore, where their influence is most needed and yield the best results.’  Perhaps Jersey, an island surrounded by water should adopt this emblem as a motto for attracting inward investments?

The large book also provided tables and figures on trade and commerce and I was struck by how much presence British, or rather companies headquartered in London had on managing infrastructures in the state of Pará with large contracts to operate anything from the commercial ports of Belém, distribution of electricity to maintaining roads, parks and sanitation. Several banks with London connections also had a strong foot print in the financial sector with names such as the London and Brazilian Bank, London and River Plate Bank (by 1923, Lloyds Bank acquired control of both banks) offering financial services and constructing large and impressive new offices in the commercial banking centre of Belém. Tracking down the address and building of the former London and Brazilian Bank the Victorian architectural façade now somewhat dilapidated (like most of Brazil’s colonial architecture) and now home to a pound store version of cheap baby clothes called So Atacado (translates as So Attached.) 

What was also noticeable from the data used in promoting Pará as the ‘California of South America’ was how the state finances were measured using Pound Sterling as its official currency. It was clear that Brtain’s influence in Brazil at the turn of the century was still significant since its colonial period when the UK helped the Portugese Royal family with safe passage across the Atlantic in their forced exile from Portugal. There is no doubt that Charles Robin and other Jersey firms were benefitting from Britains close ties with Brazil in both domestic and international trade and I know from reading some of Charles' letters in his Letterbox (in the archive at Musée de la Gaspésie in Gaspé City) that he was very protective of his commercial interests and was a master in corresponding with a vast international network of business associates and agents in his cod-fish trade empire. 

Just as I arrived in Belém I got news from the Police in Recife, that they had apprehended my iPhone. In some ways I had resigned to the fact that my stolen phone was a kind of sacrifice, or offering that I had to make in allowing me permission to visit these lands and learn about Brazil and its nation of people with diverse ethnic backgrounds. But, of course the reality was a much simpler explanation, and less rarefied as my phone was stolen because I foolishly did not lock my door to my room while fetching a bag from my car and the culprit was arrested because we could track my phone online using Apple’s ‘ find my iPhone’ app – so, I suppose, I am thankful for one corporate dominance in the mobile phone technology market.  

Rua 15 de Novembro - Ao fundo, o Edifício London Bank (on the right) A handtinted postcard from Belém da Sausada

Rua 15 de Novembro - Ao fundo, o Edifício London Bank (on the right) A handtinted postcard from Belém da Sausada

Te Ahi Kā in final production... by Martin Toft

Progress from photo book making with Ania Nałęcka-Milach in Warsaw. Te Ahi Kā will be published under the imprint by Dewi Lewis Publishing and in partnership with Oratia Books in New Zealand. More news to come soon!

Dispatch #5: Brazil by Martin Toft

 In Rosemary Ormer’s book, From Outpost to Outport she provides a structural economical analysis of the Jersey-Gaspé cod fishery revealing a functional three-pointed trading system, what she refers to as a ‘merchant triangle’ with production in Gaspé, management in Jersey and markets in the Mediterranean, the West Indies and Brazil. Her central question in her book is: ‘How did the cod-fishery, functioning as a commodity trade, shape the economic development of the metropole that managed it and the colony that produced it. ‘ 

Applying Ormer’s question and methodologies of examining the merchant trade in action, ‘the smooth functioning of complex networks of supply, production and trading’ and ‘hidden machinery of information flow, finance flow, management organization and decision making’ I went to visit the archive at the Associação Comercial da Bahia (the equivalent of the Chamber of Commerce in Jersey) established in 1811 by the Portugese crown and situated right on the water’s edge where the old port and seawall were before reclamation of land to extend its waterfront and build a much larger commercial port.

Salvador had a significant British merchant population who were the main commercial partners of Portugal and England exercised huge influence, partly due to a fleet of British warships (accompanied also by the British ambassador, Lord Strangford) escorting the Portugese court and future king Joao VI to Brazil in 1808 during their exile from Napoleon invasion in Portugal. 

For example, Salvador has a British Cemetery, the first protestant burial ground to be granted by its Catholic ruler. In the first book of company registers, Matricula dos Socios there are seven British registered companies listed in the first 20 with corporations such as London and Brazilian Bank Limited (28 Jan, 1874) and Wilson, Sons and Company Limited (23 Jan 1878) – one of the oldest private enterprises in Brazil (established in 1837 by two Scottish brothers, Edward and Fleetwood Pellow Wilson, one of them buried in the British Cemetery) and one of the country’s largest providers of integrated port and maritime logistics and supply chain solutions servicing both domestic and international trade as well as Brazil’s oil and gas industry. Looking through the first 100 registered companies there were no references to Jersey firms or indeed Robin’s agent in Salvador, Messrs. Thomas LeBreton & Co. (est. 1835). As it happened I was staying very close to the British Cemetery and visited it on a number of occasions, partly as it commanded a great view across the bay, right next to the exclusive yacht club in the rich neighbourhood of Vitória in Salvador. There were no headstones visible with any Jersey names, as compared with the Gaspé Coast where most Anglican cemeteries are populated by people from the island of Jersey, However, upon contacting Dr Sabrina Gledhill, a former British expat and academic who lived in Salvador for 30 years and instrumental in campaigning successfully for the British Cemetery to be granted money for restoration, listed as a heritage site and to ensure it didn’t fall victim to real estate speculation, she informed me that according to the cemetery records a John Le Masurier, Master of the British schooner ‘Snowdrop’ of Jersey was buried there in 1873. 

There must have been a large British presence in this part of Salvador as nearby a street named, Rua Banco dos Inglêses, which incidentally also houses the Bahia British Club and two tall residential tower blocks named, Liverpool Tower and London Tower – possibly with reference to United Kingdoms two main ports of Atlantic trade during the British colonial empire. Interestingly enough, I was stopped by several people on the streets in this posh area of Salvador and instructed to put my camera away as ‘it was not safe.’ Salvador city is divided into an upper and a lower city – another remnant of colonialization - with the upper city forming the administrative, religious, and primary residential districts while the lower city being the commercial centre, with a port and market trade. Salvador served as Brazil's first capital and quickly became a major port for its slave trade and sugarcane industry. It forms the heart of the Recôncavo, Bahia's rich agricultural and industrial maritime district and I will be posting next from my travels in the interior of this rich cultural centre of Afro-Brazilian (negro) culture. (image by Benjamin R. Mulock, The British Cemetery, Salvador, Bahia, 1860, Acervo IMS)

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Dispatch #4: Brazil by Martin Toft

In the Judiciary records in Arquivo Public Estada do Bahia, a civic libel case in Caschoeira (town next to Muritiba) in 1850 to due with unpaid debt between a Jóse Viera Josta Vidal vs Sara Gibaut, Joao Frederico Gibaut and Jorge Gibaut showed that in one of the clauses (clause 2) against the Gibaut's borrowing 3000 RS from Vidal a guarantee of 6 slaves was made. This confirm's my own theory that if John Frederick Gibaut was working in agriculture it was very likely that he would have been a plantation owner in Muritiba. The state of Bahia was the destination for many of the nearly 5 million slaves that the Portuguese brought to Brazil from West Africa and it may also explain why Jóse Adilson Gibaut initially was reluctant to speak to contact established by Carlos Ingouville, friend of SJ and a descendant of the famous Ingouville family in Jersey who lives in Rio de Janeiro. What's also interesting is that Sara Gibaut must be the wife of Jean Gibault and mother of John Frederick Gibaut, or rather Joao Frederico Gibaut as he had de-Anglicised his name to Latin-American in Muritibia. A futher two tribunals from 1848 and 1851 were also listed under Joao Frederico Gibaut and my new research assistant Marcello from the states archive are currently reading through both to get an idea about what the libel cases are concerning. 

This disproves my other theory that Joao may have been born out of wedlock and also mixed race, as the Baptism records from Grouville Church shows that Jean Gibaut married a Sara Gavey who would then have changed her name to Sara Gibaut. In a few days I will be heading into the interior of Bahia and will be meeting with Jose Adilson Gibaut who hopefully will have more information about his family connections in Brazil

Dispatch #3: Brazil by Martin Toft

After only a few hours of arriving in Salvador in the state of Bahia in North East of Brazil we have established a family connection with the daguerreotype portrait of John Frederick Gibault. Thanks to my hosts Julieta and Melodi for putting me in touch with Felipe, a local Banian teacher and student of history who spoke with Jose Adilson Gibault currently living in Muritibia. He informed us that his grand father Jorge Gibault was a son of John Frederick. Jorge also had a daughter Detinha Gibault who is 95 years old and living in Salvador. Questions still remain about who was John Frederick's mother, how his father Jean Gibault came to be in Muritibia around 1822-23 when Brazil was becoming an independent country free of Portuguese colonial rule. 

We would also like to know who made the daguerreotype portrait in Bahia in 1843 at a time when photography was relatively nascent. From research in the photographic archives at Biblioteca Nacional in Rio evidence is clear that photographic practice was very active with many photographers, mainly European emigrants setting up studios in Rio, Salvador and Recife. In the mid-19th Century the population of Salvador was a third higher than in Rio (650,000 compared to 450,000 - statistics published in 1837) and in many respects the State of Bahia was a thriving metropole in large parts due to it being the centre of the sugar production with a recorded number of 540 plantations registered using slave labour. 

Jean Gibaullt is listed as a sea captain in the Canadian cod-fisheries and we know that a Moises Amise Gibault and Francis Gibault (possibly brothers) also worked as sea captains for Charles Robin and mastered ships build in Paspebiac the headquarters of Robin's fish empire in the Bay of Chaleurs in the Gaspé Coast. It was Robin that established trade with Brazil in the early 19th century and it is very plausible that Jean Gibault mastered a ship that brought cod-fish from Canada to Brazil and somehow fathered a child in Bahia. 

Jose Adilson Gibault also told us that his great-grandfather didn't work at sea like his father but made his money in agriculture.

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Dispatch #2: Brazil by Martin Toft

Today I spend my time in the Biblioteca Nacional in Rio de Janeiro researching history of trade of bacalhau between Brazil and Canada/ British North America. Not surprisingly very little has emerged as documents kept during the colonial period of Brazil’s history before Independence was not very well administrated. So far the name Charles Robin does not appear anywhere in national records and I’m now looking at reports issued on an annual basis by various Presidents of the provinces of Bahia and Pernumbuco where we know that Robin and other Jersey fish merchants traded dried codfish for mainly sugar and later coffee in the mid 19th century. The main problem is language - as I don’t speak Portuguese and very few people I’ve met so far speak much English! It makes you wonder how Robin kept communications flow with his agents stationed in various outposts and goods cris-crossing the Atlantic #seaflowerventure#transatlantic #trade #codfish #bacalhau #archives

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Dispatch #1: Brazil  by Martin Toft

In the cemetery next to where I live in St Lawrence are the headstones of Moise Gibault and Jean Gibault, both born in the late 18th century. They were both involved in the merchant trade and could be related to a John Frederick Gibault born in Muritiba, Bahia an outpost in North East region of Brazil whose daguerreotype portrait from 1843 landed on the desk of Photo-Archivist, @garethsyvret at the @societejersiaise earlier in 2018. For the next 6 weeks I will be on the trail of this enigmatic image and other traces linked to Jersey's historic cod fishing industry as part of my Seaflower Venture project exploring maritime routes and trade networks established by Charles Robin, the island's premier fish merchant who founded Jersey most successful firm in Gaspė, Canada in 1767. Stay tuned for dispatches from Brazil! #seaflowerventure #transatlantic #archisle#societejersiaise #daguerreotype #photoarchives

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