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About This Site

Helping you use Saint Helena Island Info

The best place for information on St Helena{a}

Why is this site here? How do you get the best from it? Read on…

What is this site for?

Put simply, Saint Helena Island Info aims to be a resource which documents St Helena, the island in the South Atlantic. We aim for it to cover everything you could possibly need to know about St Helena: past, present and future. That’s quite a challenge, and although there are already information pages on the site we feel we still have more to do.

This website is a highly valuable resource.{b}

Please Note It is our intention to address our subject in a light-hearted manner, while maintaining factual accuracy and honesty. We aim to be a source you can trust for information about St Helena.

TIP:TIP: If you access Saint Helena Island Info using our published URL http://sainthelenaisland.info/ Google Chrome™ will give you lots of not secure warnings, which are quite irrelevant because we don’t capture any personal or financial information from you, but can be a bit irritating. But if you access it using https://sainthelenaisland.info/, as if it were a secure site, you still get to Saint Helena Island Info, but all the warnings go away! Go, update your bookmarks now…

How To Use This Site

You can get to here from anywhere using the HELP button (). If you came here that way you can return using your browser’s Back button.

Below: Where to startPage Structureà la CarteSubject Groups ExplainedOther IndexesAccessibility StatementContent PoliciesIsland HistoryMaterial we have usedIf you have a question

Where to start

If St Helena is new to you, perhaps because you stumbled on this site while looking for something else, start with our page Where is St Helena?, so that at least you know where we are, and then perhaps go to our page Information Index to begin exploring.

If you’re new to Saint Helena Island Info, the best place to start is our page Information Index, which will show you how to navigate to the detail you seek. Or you could try the features for today.

See our Privacy Notice and Cookies Policy.

Page Structure

Pages on Saint Helena Island Info follow a standard structure:

à la Carte

You can configure some aspects of Saint Helena Island Info to operate differently, or to meet visual impairment issues. To do this you need to visit our Configuration page - use the Configure icon () in the Control Icons (top, right). Things you can change include colour schemes{6}, fonts and font sizes.

If you have visual imparement we suggest you try Colour Scheme ‘High Contrast’ or ‘White’.

Your settings are saved on your Device for subsequent visits to the site, but please be aware that if you use more than one browser you will need to set up the changes on each one (or have each of them different!)

If there is anything else you would like us to make configurable please contact us. We can’t promise to implement all suggestions but we can guarantee that they all will be considered.

Subject Groups Explained

Other Indexes

If searching for content you may also find useful:

Accessibility Statement

We are committed to making Saint Helena Island Info’s content accessible and user friendly to everyone.

If you are having difficulty viewing or navigating the content on this website, or notice any content, feature, or functionality that you believe is not fully accessible to people with disabilities, please contact us (email: with Disabled Access in the subject line). Please provide a description of the specific feature you feel is not fully accessible, or a suggestion for improvement.

We take your feedback seriously and will consider it as we evaluate ways to accommodate all of our customers and our overall accessibility policies.

The above complies with the requiremts of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (USA) and other equivalent legislation.

Content Policies

Below: GeneralTerminologyOpinionUnitsFormatsTechnicalAdvertsEarnings DisclosureAnd also…

General

PRIVACY NOTICE: The website does not collect or store any personal data from you. If any data is collected or stored by our web host this is outside our control - please consult names.co.uk. We also use tools provided by third parties; if any data is collected or stored by these third parties this is outside our control. This site does not collect any personal data from users, and does not allow users to make any financial transactions, so an SSL Certificate (https://) is not required (see also Technical Information).

Children warning

While profanity is generally avoided parents should review all content before allowing minors to view Saint Helena Island Info as descriptions of some of our past - for example on our pages Slavery on St Helena and Titbits from the records - may upset young children.

information and data are presented ‘as is’ and while we endeavour to ensure accuracy this cannot be guaranteed. No liability can be accepted for any errors in the information or data presented. For more Terms & Conditions see our page Important Information.

Where legal matters are discussed please be aware that this website is only providing a Layman’s Opinion. You should not take any action based on what you read on this website without first consulting a qualified legal professional.

When relating history (even recent history), in some cases we do not actually know exactly what happened and/or when. We indicate this where relevant; the phrase If you know please contact us appears often! Estimated dates are usually shown with the prefix .

Where email addresses are quoted these were correct at the time of addition but are not guaranteed to be still valid. However, @sainthelenaisland.info and @burghhouse.com addresses should be reliable - please contact us if one does not work.

Where events are reported Saint Helena Island Info simply presents what happened. It does not in general take a position on whether what happened should have happened.

If you are offended by anything on Saint Helena Island Info please contact us, explaining your reasons, and we will review it.

Terminology

You may see the terms ‘slave’ and ‘slaves’ on this site, which some people find objectionable. We recognise and respect that slavery is how its victims were treated, not what defined them, and we aim to refer to the victims as ‘enslaved’, but we have not amended quoted text and diagrams that use the terms ‘slave’ or ‘slaves’.

The terms ‘he’, ‘him’, etc. are used when the subject’s identifying gender is known to be male; ‘she’, ‘her’, etc. are used when the subject’s identifying gender is known to be female; and ‘s/he’, ‘him/her’, ‘they’, etc. where the identifying gender could be either. Where the subject does not identfy with a gender the term ‘they’ is used, for both singular and plural contexts.

Note that Great Britain was created in 1707 by the Act of Union, which merged England and Scotland into a single kingdom, the Kingdom of Great Britain. St Helena was an English posession until 1707 and a British posession thereafter. The terms ‘England’/‘English’ and ‘Britain’/‘British’ are used accordingly.

These days it is normal to write place names without any apostrophes, even where these are clearly implied in the name. Thus what should be written Munden’s Hill - named after Governor Richard Munden - is almost always written Mundens Hill. In general we have shown place names as they are usually written, without any apostrophes that should really be there.

For brevity, island newspapers are commonly referred to using their abbreviated name. For example, what we refer to as ‘The Independent’ is, strictly, ‘The St Helena Independent’, presumably to distinguish it from UK newspaper ‘The Independent’.

SEE ALSO: Regulation

Opinion

Opinions quoted on this site are not necessarily shared by the editor of this website/The Website Owner.

Quoted texts and Read More content are commonly not adjusted for spelling or grammar and, in addition, may contain content that conflicts with modern values is no longer considered acceptable. They are intended to amuse or provoke thought and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor of this website/The Website Owner.

Where Saint Helena Island Info expresses an opinion it is clearly indicated as such.

Units

Weights and measurements are normally given in SI units (Km, Kg, etc.). Some older texts use the original imperial units. In general, if you hover your mouse cursor over a unit, its equivalent should appear as a tool-tip (though this depends on your browser); illustrated thus. Images are sized in pixels (px).

The metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimetre bullet.{c}

Historic monetary amounts are generally converted to current values and shown as a tool-tip (as with weights and measures, described above). This conversion uses the Average Annual Nominal Earnings dataset from www.measuringworth.com{4}. No attempt is made to translate SHP/GBP £s into other currencies but a converter is available from www.xe.com.

Unless indicated otherwise times are shown as GMT. Whenever you see the ‘current’ time on this site you are actually seeing St Helena’s current time, which may be different from your local time. For example, if you are in Arizona (UTC-7) and your local time is 10pm, Saint Helena Island Info will give the current time as 5am the following day - the actual time on St Helena at that moment. Please Note All ‘current’ times on Saint Helena Island Info are calculated from your Device’s clock, so are only as accurate as you make them…

{7}

The week is defined as beginning on Monday, running through to the last day - Sunday. Calendars (e.g. right) reflect this.

We follow the British convention that floors in buildings are designated ‘Ground’ (street level), 1st, 2nd, etc. The level below the street is the ‘Basement’.

Formats

Document downloads are usually in Portable Document Format (.pdf); these can be read by most systems, but if you need a reader you can download one free from acrobat.adobe.com/‌gb/‌en. Audio downloads are normally in MPEG 1 Layer 3 (.mp3) format which is an Internet standard. Most images are in Independent JPEG Group (.jpg), Portable Network Graphics (.png) or Graphics Interchange Format (.gif) which all modern browsers can display. A few charts are in SVG (.svg) format which has been an Internet standard since 2001. Video downloads are currently all in MP4 (.mp4) format (usually H264).

Technical

Javascript must be enabled to see all content. Only limited functionality is provided for users who choose to disable Javascript.

We frequently link to Facebook™ pages, particularly in item credits. Facebook™ does not take down pages when they become inactive (which would trigger our Dead Links process) and we do not have the resources to continually verify that all of these pages remain active. If you spot an inactive one please contact us.

Where an external site requests secure mode (https://) we link directly in that mode (all modern browsers support https://).

SEE ALSO: Technical Information

Adverts

You will note that there are no adverts on this site.

To optimise the user experience this site does not carry advertising - unlike some other St Helena sites we do not want to sell you stuff to fund Saint Helena Island Info. Want to support this site? There is no obligation but if you want to Buy Us a CoffeeBuy Us a Coffee your contribution will be most welcome{8}. There’s a link at the bottom of every page. It should go without saying (but we’re saying it anyway) that contributing financially does not confer any right to influence the content of Saint Helena Island Info.

Earnings Disclosure

An Earnings Disclosure is required by law in some US States.

Saint Helena Island Info carries NO advertising. John Turner earns NO commission or other income from any content presented on this site. The only financial inputs are support for the site’s out-of-pocket running costs (domain name, hosting, etc.), including voluntary contributions from fans.

May contain nuts …

And also…

All electrons used in the production of this site are 100% recycled and come from sustainable sources.Recycling symbol Nutrition Information: Gluten-free; Dairy-free; Energy 0; Carbohydrates 0 (of which, Sugars 0); Protein 0; Fats 0 (of which, Unsaturated Fats 0); Salt 0; Alcohol 0.0%; does not contain a source of Phenylalanine; does not contain Nuts (but edited in a place where nuts are consumed). Best Before . Do not store above 40°C. Smoking is not recommended on this site.No Smoking @@E@@ No wombatsWombat @@E@@ were harmed in the making of this site{9}. Keep dry @@E@@ This way up @@E@@ Not compatible with Internet Explorer Saint Helena Island Info is proud to be Made in St Helena! @@E@@

Island History

Material we have used

Information is reproduced here for educational non-commercial use only; all copyrights are acknowledged. Excerpts fall within the doctrine of ‘fair use’.

Information and images presented on this site are gleaned from many sources, mostly on the Internet but all in the public domain. Acknowledgement is offered to:

Some images are sourced from the Wikipedia (and related projects) and are used under the Creative Commons Licence{4} Creative Commons Licence logo @@E@@.

We source some images and other content from the Internet, but only from public domain sources and we always respect copyright where asserted. If you think we have breached your copyright or used your copyrighted material without your permission please contact us and we will advise on how access our ‘Alleged Breach of Copyright’ procedure.

If you have a question

Before you contact us with your question, perhaps we have already answered it? Firstly there is the information on our information pages - see How To Use This Site(above) for how to find stuff. For more general questions check our pages Frequently Asked Questions about St Helena, Frequently Asked Questions about this site and Help With for answers to many common questions we are asked about Saint Helena Island Info and about St Helena itself

If none of these answers your question please feel free to contact us.

Updates, Site History & Status

Below: Update policyBrief History of Saint Helena Island Info…Current status

Update policy

Saint Helena Island Info is proud to be Made in St Helena!

We update this site whenever sufficient changes (new content; improved images and layout; even corrected errors!) have accumulated. Saint Helena Island Info was last updated on @@JAVASITELASTUPDATED@@. We do our best to keep the information on this site up-to-date, but with individual pages to review it is probable that the occasional superseded item will slip through. If you spot anything that needs updating please contact us.

It can take as long as two hours to upload the updates because of St Helena’s relatively slow Internet connection and, although we try to upload in a continuity-friendly manner, during this time you may experience issues accessing the site, for which we apologise. When completed we announce these updates on social media. After we update the site you may need to force your browser to refresh the page{11}!

You can see which pages were updated in the most recent release and also see when pages were first added.

A Brief History of Saint Helena Island Info…

June 2010
Site years ago, June 2010 (Click to explore)

This site was first registered on 1st July 2009. Initially the site had 19 pages, 11 of which were information pages, and 77 images. You can actually explore the June 2010 version of the site - click on the screen-shot (right).

The current colours, layout and logo came in 2012, and by October 2012 the site was up to 35 pages (24 information pages) and 210 images. By the end of 2014 there were 87 pages (77 information pages); 28 downloads and 1,306 images. 100 pages was reached in July 2015, 200 pages in November 2017 and the site has continued to grow steadily ever since.

In December 2018 changes were made to improve access from mobile Devices. The recommended minimum viewing width was reduced to 720 pixels{12} and the fixed menu on the left was replaced by a requestable menu triggered from a floating icon (, top, right). Around ¼ of our users connect with mobile Devices.

At the beginning of 2020 we posted a notice for users that choose not to enable Javascript, warning that we would disable additional non-Javascript features unless we heard reasons not to. We heard nothing so the May 2020 release removed all additional processing for users that do not enable Javascript. For such users the site should still function but some content is no longer available. Modern browsers enable Javascript by default, and on some it is actually quite difficult to disable, so we were confident this would not affect many, if any, users. We have received no complaints.

User Configuration (Saint Helena Island Info à la Carte) came in July 2020 - use the Configure icon () in the Control Icons (top, right).

250 information pages was reached with the upload on 22nd January 2023.

In November 2023 we posted a survey on SurveyMonkey, asking if Saint Helena Island Info should retain its current white-on-green colour or change to the more-common black-on-white colour. Many people commented that the white-on-green was distinctive and some noted that the green reminded them of St Helena. No arguments were advanced for changing to black-on-white, though people did vote for the change. We were pleased at how many people voted. The result of the vote is that over two thirds of respondents want to stay with white-on-green, with under a third wishing for the change to black-on-white. So green-on-white it will remain!

Current status

It is accessed from all over the world - recently the top countries were (in alphabetic order): Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, The Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, The Republic of Korea, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, The Russian Federation, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The United Kingdom & The United States{13}. The top search topics were: Napoleon; jobs; the airport/flights; the cost of living and moving here; a good place to live and our climate. Page Usage by hour of the day is fairly consistent around the clock:

Regulation & Complaints

Plesse Note Saint Helena Island Info is hosted in the UK so is not, technically, ‘delivered…from St Helena’; it is, however, edited here and it is our policy to fully comply with St Helena’s media regulations.

Complaints Procedure

If you wish to make a complaint about anything published on Saint Helena Island Info the procedure is very simple:

  1. First contact us and explain the details of your complaint. We undertake to respond within seven days. We may need to ask for more information to correctly process your complaint. We undertake to give you a formal response to your complaint within 28 days of the last exchange between you and us about your complaint.

  2. If you consider that our response does not adequately address your complaint you can refer the matter to the St Helena Media Commission (as described above).

None of the above affects your legal rights.

Beware of impostors!

Impostor flag

‘What the Saints did next…’

(What’s happening inside St Helena)

The history of St Helena and its people is continuing. This website can’t provide up-to-the-minute news about what’s happening inside St Helena, and there is no need for us to do so because sources of St Helena news are readily available on the Internet:

By the time the future is easy to predict it’s history!{d}

Technical Information

Below: SSL CertificateStandards ConformanceEncodingUsabilityBrowser TestingSite IndexError PageWork In ProgressJavascript‘Cookies’LocalStorageSite FilesSite MaintenanceAccess from Mobile Devices

SSL Certificate

This site does not collect any personal data from users, and does not allow users to make any financial transactions, so an SSL Certificate (https://) is not required.

Standards Conformance

Pages on this site are delivered as HTML5, for feature comatibility with all modern browsers.

Encoding

Pages on this site are encoded in utf-8.

Usability

This site uses Cascading Style Sheets. You can therefore control text size and colours using your web browser. Please refer to the documentation for your web browser for further information.

Images are normally limited to a maximum dimension of 10000 pixels but maps and diagrams are permitted to be larger.

Please contact us to report any usability problems, specifying as much technical information (OS, browser version, etc.) as possible.
Thank you.

Browser Testing

StatCounter browser usage

Features are tested using: ⋅ Chrome Browser logo @@E@@Google Chrome™; ⋅ Firefox Browser logoFirefox™; and ⋅ Opera Browser logoOpera™{14}. All features should work in these browsers but some may not work in others. Read about browsers here.

Site Index

A full site index appears here.

Error Page

Unresolved URLs are directed here: Error Page

Work In Progress

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Please Note Some pages on this site may be under construction and that these pages may not yet work fully as advertised. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

We welcome feedback, so please contact us with your comments on our work so far.

Javascript

Javascript logo

Javascript is a technology that allows websites to display dynamic content, e.g. date-based or user-selected displays. Saint Helena Island Info makes use of Javascript to deliver useful content so please be aware that some features described on this page will only work if you have Javascript enabled in your browser.

‘Cookies’

This site does not use ‘cookies’. However, the third-party products (e.g. Google™) used on this site may employ cookies, outside our control.

Note that this site does use the Javascript feature localStorage to retain parameters, as set on our page Configure This Site, which can be accessed from anywhere with the icon - see the Control Icons (top, right).

localStorage

Configuration parameters (accessed with the icon - see the Control Icons (top, right)) are stored in your browser using the Javascript facility ‘localStorage’. While this is in some ways similar to using ‘Cookies’ we do not use it to store any information about you, about your browser or about the Device you use, so it does not compromise your privacy.

Site Files

Site Maintenance

This site was created and is maintained for us by Burgh House Media crest @@E@@Burgh House Media Productions (part of Burgh House crest @@E@@Burgh House Limited), to whom all technical queries may be directed.

Access from Mobile Devices

This site should be fully accessible from any mobile Device with a usable screen width of at least 600px{15}. Around ¼ of our users connect with mobile Devices.

Who is ‘we’?

Editor, John Turner
Editor, John Turner

Saint Helena Island Info is operated and edited by John Turner, who lives in Napoleon Street, moved to St Helena with his family in 2005, obtained Saint Status in 2012 and hopes to stay here for the rest of his life{16}. We can therefore confirm that Saint Helena Island Info is proud to be Made in St Helena! Saint Helena Island Info is proud to be Made in St Helena @@E@@.

Many have contributed content to the site and we thank them all. Please Note This site is not operated by the Government of St Helena, the Tourist Information Office or the Museum of St Helena.

This site is run from the editor of this website’s family home in Jamestown, which is really not suitable for welcoming unexpected callers. So if you want to meet in person please contact us in advance to make an arrangement.

Features for today

Read More

Article: The original ‘Homepage of St Helena’

John Ekwall, 1996
John Ekwall, 1996

Site banner
Think of a place far from the madding crowd, think of a place where heritage and nature are in harmony, think of a place with warm and friendly people…think no more…come and see for yourself.

In 1990 Radio St Helena did its first Radio St Helena Day short-wave broadcast to the world. And half-way across the world this broadcast reached an enthusiastic radio listener in Sweden by the name of John Ekwall. John was fascinated to hear live radio from St Helena, such a tiny speck in the vast South Atlantic Ocean. John’s fascination with St Helena had begun a while before and he had begun corresponding with the people at Radio St Helena. In 1992 he visited for the first time, and again in 1997.

In addition to his radio listening activities John was also an ‘early adopter’ of the Internet. In 1996, with websites just beginning to spring up around the world but with the Internet still not generally available on St Helena, John decided that he would create the world’s first website about St Helena. And thus, later that year, the ‘Homepage of St Helena’, hosted from Sweden, was born.

Initially much of the site was focussed on Radio St Helena and its annual short-wave transmissions but the site quickly grew into a comprehensive guide to the island; hence the popular name, the ‘Homepage of St Helena’.

John continued maintaining the site until around 2014 when other pressures got the better of him. He handed back the domain name at the beginning of 2017{17}. Later, regretting his decision, John created a new version of the site at joesweden.info/‌sthelena.

This is the site as it was in late 1996:

LOL

Credits:
{a} lukemckernan.com{b} Dr. Peter Hohenhaus{c} Dave Barry{d} Peter de Jager

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Footnotes:
{1} It was removed in December 2018 to make the site easier to use on mobile Devices. Around ¼ of our users connect with mobile Devices.{2} At the time of writing there were links to unique external sites.{3} Note that our supplied Style Sheet (http://sainthelenaisland.info/normal.css) overrides the behaviour of some browsers which highlight visited and hovered links differently. If you want this behaviour you will need to use your own style sheet. See your browser’s instructions for how you achieve this. Also note that (except in HIGH CONTRAST mode) our underscore thus is deliberately ‘less harsh’ than the standard underscore thus, but again you can override this with your own Style Sheet.{4} @@RepDis@@{5} Why? Well in a vast number of movies there is a scene where someone gets into a taxi and, in response to the driver asking Where to?, says Take me anywhere but here!. We thought this sounded like a good idea for a Saint Helena Island Info feature…{6} .{7} Please Note All ‘current’ times on Saint Helena Island Info are calculated from your Device’s clock, so are only as accurate as you make them…{8} Saint Helena Island Info is not, and was never intended to be a money-making venture, but if you feel you want to, please support us in any way you can. Even if you don’t contribute financially please tell all your friends about the site, post links on social media, and generally help us remain the leading independent site about the island of St Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.{9} At least, not as far as we know, but how can you be sure? There was a David Attenborough film (can’t remember which one) that showed a wombat digging a hole and another wombat standing behind getting showered with earth, but the second wombat didn’t think to move away. With a creature like that how can you be certain you haven’t harmed one? Anyway, they may be stupid but they’re definitely cute and so should not be harmed. [Image, right]

A wombat
A wombat

{10} The four ‘Wirebird’ publications should not be confused.{11} PAGE-REFRESH EXPLAINED: to save Internet time most browsers maintain a ‘cache’ - a store of recently-viewed pages, images, etc. If you go back to a page you recently visited your browser will use a complicated algorithm to decide whether to use its stored page files, or get new ones from our Internet source. Obviously, if your browser decides to use its stored data, you will not see the updates we have made! On most systems you can force your browser to refresh its store from our servers by holding down the ‘Ctrl’ key and pressing the key ‘F5’. Please see your browser’s instructions for more.{12} It has since been further reduced to 600 pixels.{13} There were also 186 other countries.{14} We used to test with Internet Explorer™ but as at June 2021 this has been discontinued by Microsoft™ and has few users. We’d be happy to test on Safari™ but we have no Apple™ Devices and Apple™ does not release a Windows™ version of Safari™. We do limited testing on Microsoft Edge™ but as it now uses the Chrome Browser logo @@E@@Google Chrome™ engine we assume anything that works on Chrome Browser logo @@E@@Google Chrome™ will work on Edge™.{15} In fact it seems to work with a screen as small as 300px wide, but firstly we don’t guarantee that this will always be the case and secondly the layout at such low resolutions is not optimal.{16} Not that it matters, but there was an earlier John Turner here in the 17th Century. He was a soldier who arrived onboard the Johanna from Portsmouth in 1678. It is unlikely that there is any relationship.{17} It is now used for a site in Swedish which is notionally about St Helena but is full of out-of-date content and bad links, so we do not link to it from here.

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