About This Site
Helping you use Saint Helena Island Info
The best place for information on St Helena
lukemckernan.com/2018/03/30/this-islands-mine
Why is this site here? How do you get the best from it? Read on…
IN BRIEF: Saint Helena Island Info provides all the latest{1} and most accurate information you need to help you learn about and explore our island, covering St Helena’s history, culture, places to visit, food & drink, nature and activities to enjoy, with information on how to visit, where to stay and related travel information. In fact, our information pages cover everything you could possibly want to know about our island! More below…
Below: What is this site for? • How to use Saint Helena Island Info • If you have a question • Island History • Material we have used • Site History and Updates • Beware of impostors! • ‘What the Saints did next…’ • Technical Information • Who is ‘we’? • Read More
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.
Peter Hohenhaus, dark-tourism.com
Please note that it is our intention to address our subject in a light-hearted manner, while maintaining factual accuracy and honesty.
How to use Saint Helena Island Info
You can get to here from any page using the HELP button (？). If you came here that way you can return using your browser’s Back button.
If St Helena is new to you, perhaps because you stumbled on this site while looking for something else, start with our Where is St Helena? page, so that at least you know where we are, and then perhaps go to the Information Index page to begin exploring.
If you’re new to Saint Helena Island Info, the best place to start is our Information Index page, which will show you how to navigate to the detail you seek.
See also Technical Information (below)
Below: Page Structure • Subject Groups Explained • Other Indexes • Content Policies • Adverts
Page Structure
Some of the following assumes that you have Javascript enabled in your browser, which it appears you do not.
Pages on Saint Helena Island Info follow a standard structure:
There is no fixed menu{2}. An icon (☰) floats at the top-right corner of the screen. Click this to display the menu, and again to remove it. This pop-up menu provides quick access to the main pages on the site. It is the same from every page. The menu does require that you have Javascript enabled in your browser, but a non-Javascript alternative menu is provided towards the bottom of the page. (Other icons here are explained below.)
Each page begins with a title and a subtitle. It may also have ‘context badges’, perhaps indicating the physical location of the place the page is discussing, or that the subject is, for example, one of our Seven Wonders, etc.
Next there is usually an amusing or thought-provoking quote related to the subject of the page, followed by a banner which provides an introduction to the page’s contents.
Below the banner are some social media icons.
We actively encourage users to share our content on social media, and get a discussion going about what we have written. And if your discussion leads you to believe we should change our content, please contact us.
Then you will find an image related to the page contents and a top-level menu (‘Below: …’). There may also be links to ‘our other’ related pages.
The page content follows.
Links to other pages, selected images or to selected external content are highlighted with an underscore thus{3}.
Major headings are numbered, to make it easier to track where you are. They also have the symbol ∧ and if you click here you are taken to the top-level menu (in some browsers Alt+I also does this, from anywhere). You can also find this symbol in the control icons (top, right) with the same effect.
If you see the symbol and hover over it you should see the What3Words location of the item in question. Similarly, if you see the symbol and hover over it you should see the coordinates of the item in question, using latest GPS Data.
Thumbnail - Click to enlargeImages are frequently shown as thumbnails: click on the image to open it full-size in a new tab or window in your browser (example, right). Others are shown variable-width - they expand to fill your display screen (up to 1.5x the original image size). Some variable-width images will also expand if clicked.
Towards the bottom you will usually find one or more reproductions{4} of articles on topics related to the page content.
Below this you may find a list of Historical Events from our Events Database that reference this page (the section appears only if there are events to display).
This is often followed by a humorous image related to the page’s contents, indicated with
.Then there are any footnotes and item credits. These are indicated in the text with markers: {1} for footnotes and {a} for credits (on images a credit marker may be superimposed on the edge of the image). Most browsers will show the text of the footnote/credit if you hover over the marker, or you can click on the marker to be taken to the footnote/credit text itself. Click a marker {} here to return to the main body of the text. Note that a Credit may be to the person or organisation that supplied the image to Saint Helena Island Info, which is not necessarily the originator of the image. More about credits on our Credits page.
The page content is followed by the Navigation section, helping you identify further pages of interest.
There may be one or more indexes, depending on the indexes in which the page appears - the drop-down boxes link to all the pages in the relevant index.
There is also a navigation option that lists all pages.
Two page-searches follow, one which searches by page title, subtitle and keywords, and the Google™ search which is a full-page search.
Our Subject Index and Site Index pages may also be helpful.
Finally, there is our Take Me Anywhere But Here! feature{5}'.
Lastly on the page the social media icons appear again followed by some general and page-specific information.
With the Menu icon in the top right corner of the page, you will see some other icons which also do not scroll with the page. The top one looks like this: ᐃ and if you click this the screen will scroll back to the top (in some browsers Alt+T also does this, from anywhere). Beneath it is the opposite icon, ᐁ, which scrolls the screen down to the Navigation options (in some browsers Alt+N also does this, from anywhere). Below that is the Help icon (？) which takes you from anywhere to the top of this section. Next is the Feedback icon (‼) which helps you email us feedback on the page being displayed.
You can change the display colour scheme, with these options: ‘GREENS’ (the default); ‘HIGH CONTRAST’ (for the sight-impared); ‘REDS’; ‘BLUES’; and ‘GREYSCALE’. Click this icon ⵙ from any page (in the Control Icons, top right). Your browser should remember your selection.
Where you are offered a download you will see the symbol♦, and if you hover your mouse over this symbol information about the file should appear as a tool-tip (though this depends on your browser). Note that the date shown is when the file was added to the site, not its creation or publication date.
In the menu there is a link to a translate facility if English is not your preferred language.
Many pages contain Easter Eggs - things that pop-up when you hover over an insignificant word or other object with no prior clue that they’re there. This is completely pointless but is a fun feature of many computer games and also Saint Helena Island Info. Here’s one we will reveal: Go to Glossary and hover over the word establishments (first line). That’s how it works. Have fun searching for the others!
Subject Groups Explained
Saint Helena Island Info currently has information pages, so to help you explore and find what you are looking for we have organised them with various subject groupings. If your interest is our natural environment, start with the Nature Pages index and navigate easily through all of these. Similarly if you want to know about activities, or people, or history, or places… Each subject group has a symbol - a small coloured icon with the first two letters of the subject name - and these appear on every page within the subject group, as follows (links are to our Information Index page):
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Of course, a page can appear in more than one index. Our Napoleon page, for example, is in ‘people’ and ‘history’.
Other Indexes
If searching for content you may also find useful:
the page search facility which locates pages by words used in the title and major headings;
our Chronology page which allows you to search our historical events database in various ways;
the Image Search page which helps you find specific images used on the site based on their subject;
an index to ships mentioned on the site;
You could also try our Address Bar Search. Looking for information on Castle Gardens but don’t know the page name? Just type http://sainthelenaisland.info/?castle gardens into your browser’s address bar and you’ll be taken to the relevant page or a useful link. Works with almost any text after the question mark. Give it a go…
Content Policies
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.
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 Slaves and slavery and Titbits from the records pages - may upset young children.
Opinions quoted on this site are not necessarily those of the editor of this website or The Website Owner.
Quoted texts are generally not adjusted for spelling or grammar.
Javascript must be enabled to see all content.
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. Where Saint Helena Island Info expresses an opinion it is clearly indicated as such.
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.
The week is defined as beginning on Monday, running through to the last day - Sunday. Calendars (e.g. right) reflect this.
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 www.adobe.com. Audio downloads are normally in MPEG 1 Layer 3 (.mp3) format which is an Internet standard. Images are in Independent JPEG Group (.jpg), Portable Network Graphics (.png) or Graphics Interchange Format (.gif) which all modern browsers can display.
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.
Dave Barry
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 measuringworth.com{4}. No attempt is made to translate SHP/GBP £s into other currencies but a converter is available from www.xe.com.
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’.
Where legal matters are discussed please note 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.
All electrons used in the production of this site are 100% recycled and come from sustainable sources. No wombats were harmed in the making of this site{6}. Nutrition Information: Gluten-free; Dairy-free; Energy 0; Carbohydrates 0 (of which, sugars 0); fat 0; salt 0; does not contain nuts (but edited in a place where nuts are consumed).
Adverts
You will note that there are no adverts on this site.
Unlike some other St Helena sites we do not need to sell you stuff to support Saint Helena Island Info, our (few) costs are sponsored by 
Burgh House Limited. If you wish to reach the people of St Helena we suggest you contact our local media.
On some Saint Helena Island Info pages you will see the following. While technically this might be considered an advertisement we actually see this more as a service to anyone wanting to learn more about our extraordinary island. Saint Helena Island Info receives no income from any sales and takes no responsibility for any commercial arrangements into which you may enter.
St Helena books from Miles Apart:
Looking for St Helena books? Miles Apart - new and second-hand books on the South Atlantic Islands♦ current list.{7}
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 (above) for how to find stuff. For more general questions check our Frequently Asked Questions and Help With pages 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.
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 sources too numerous to list, many on the Internet but all in the public domain. Acknowledgement is offered to:
‘St Helena 500’, by Robin Gill & Percy Teale, published in 1997;
The St Helena Heritage Society database;
An online database maintained by Ian Bruce, from which many of the downloadable historical documents are sourced;
The blogs of J.C. Grimshaw and John Tyrrell (who also writes for ‘Wirebird’, the magazine of Friends of St Helena{8});
The writings of various historians, including articles published in our newspapers (mostly the St Helena Herald) and ‘Wirebird’, the magazine of Friends of St Helena{8}
We source some images and other content from the Internet, but only from public domain sources and we always respect copyright. 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.
The best website about St Helena Island on the Internet!
Site History and Updates
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 so many pages to review it is probable that the occasional superseded item will slip through. If you spot anything that needs updating please contact us.
We update Saint Helena Island Info whenever sufficient changes have accumulated. It can take two hours to upload the updates because of St Helena’s 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 our Facebook™ page and our Twitter™ Feed. After we update the site you may need to force your browser to refresh the page{9}!
Site as at 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, 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 and the fixed menu on the left was replaced by a requestable menu triggered from a floating icon (☰, top,right).
You can see which pages were updated in the most recent release and also see when pages were first added.
Yet another example of how so many questions placed on this Group need not to have been asked if only people consulted Saint Helena Island Info first!
Participant in a St Helena ‘Information’ Group on Facebook™
Beware of impostors!
We are aware of other sites using similar URLs to ours, some of which also include out-of-date copies of our content and one has even stolen our images! These are nothing to do with us. They seem to exist purely to sell you stuff; we exist purely to provide accurate up-to-date information about St Helena. There is nothing we can do to prevent these imitators; we just treat it as recognition that our site is the leading independent site about St Helena and is the one to copy! NOTE: These copycats may not be safe to use; often such sites download viruses or other malware to your computer. As long as you make sure you only visit http://sainthelenaisland.info/ and ignore the mimics you can be assured of the best and most up-to-date information from a safe-to-use website.
‘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 reliable sources of St Helena news are readily available on the Internet:
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Please note: there are many sources on the Internet purporting to give news and information about St Helena. Not all of these are reliable and you should use them with caution{10}.
By the time the future is easy to predict its history!
Peter de Jager
Technical Information
Below: Standards Conformance • Encoding • Usability • Browser Testing • Site Index • Error Page • Work In Progress • Javascript • ‘Cookies’ • Site Maintenance
Standards Conformance
This site is sample-validated for conformance with the XHTML 1.0 Transitional standard. If you encounter any conformance issues please contact us.
Encoding
Pages on this site are encoded in utf-8.
Usability
A minimum viewing window width of 720 pixels is recommended for this site.
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 2400 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
Pages are tested using 
Google Chrome™, 
Firefox™ and 
Opera™{13}. All features should work in these browsers but some may not work in other browsers.
Site Index
A full site index appears here.
Error Page
Unresolved URLs are directed here: Error Page
Work In Progress
Please note that 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 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 note that some features described on this page will only work if you have Javascript enabled in your browser.
It appears you do not have Javascript enabled in your browser (not recommended).
‘Cookies’
This site does not use ‘cookies’. However, some of the third-party products (e.g. Google™) used on this site may employ cookies, outside our control.
Site Maintenance
This site was created and is maintained for us by
Burgh House Software (part of Burgh House Limited), to whom all technical queries should be directed.Who is ‘we’?
Editor, John Turner
The site is edited by John Turner, who moved to St Helena with his family in 2005 and aims to stay here for the rest of his life! Many have contributed content to the site and we thank them all. The operating costs of this site are sponsored by Burgh House Limited, providing services to businesses on, or trading with, St Helena.
We operate the site from the Editor’s family home in Jamestown, which is really not equipped to welcome unexpected callers, so if you want to meet in person please contact us to make an arrangement.
Read More
Article: www.sthelena.se
Our tribute to the original ‘website of St Helena’
John Ekwall, 1996
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, www.sthelena.se 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. The site soon became known as ‘The website of St Helena’.
John continued maintaining www.sthelena.se until around 2014 when other pressures got the better of him. He handed it over at the beginning of 2017. The site was translated into Swedish and the English version disappeared. Although much of the information is now out-of-date, the site remains of interest and in many respects is a fascinating snapshot of St Helena from the not-too distant past (but only if you read Swedish).
This is the site as it was in late 1996:
The site in Swedish:
There is also now a version of the site in English at joesweden.info/sthelena, courtesy of the originator, John Ekwall.
Footnotes:
{1} Saint Helena Island Info was last updated on @@JAVASITELASTUPDATED@@.{2} There used to be. It was removed in December 2018 to make the site easier to use on mobile devices.{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} Reproduced for educational non-commercial use only; all copyrights are acknowledged.{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!. This sounded like a good idea for a Saint Helena Island Info feature…{6} 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]
Wombat
{7} NB: This is not an advertisement.{8} The four ‘Wirebird’ publications should not be confused.{9} 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.{10} Saint Helena Island Info, our Facebook™ page and our Twitter™ Feed are, of course, completely safe and reliable!{11} And, in any case, it took so long re-setting all the stupid ‘security’ features so that pages actually displayed it really wasn’t worth the effort.{12} Windows™ 10 requires a fast, permanently online and cheap Internet connection, which is not available on St Helena (yet).{13} We used to test with Internet Explorer™ but this has now been replaced and has few users{11}. We’d be happy to test on Safari™ but we have no Apple™ devices and Apple™ does not release a Windows™ version of Safari™. Similarly we’d happily test on Microsoft’s Edge™ but this only runs on Windows™ 10 and we do not yet use this{12}.
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INFORMATION: Information pages index
You may also find useful: • Subject Index • Site Index
About This Site | Copyright © John Turner
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