The Postcard
A carte postale that was published by Jullien Frères of Geneva.
The card was posted in Château d'Œx on Thursday the 23rd. April 1908 to:
Mrs. Edwards,
'Thornleigh',
St. Andrew's,
Bridport,
Dorset,
Angleterre.
Bridport is a market town, 1.5 miles inland from the English Channel near the confluence of the River Brit and its tributary the Asker.
Bridport's origins are Saxon, and it has a long history as a rope-making centre.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"We are staying up at
Château d'Œx and are
quite in love with it.
We had a heavy snow-
storm last week.
The contrast of snow-
storms and glorious
summer days is very
delightful.
I hope all is well,
Yours,
M. D. R."
Château d'Œx
Château d'Œx is a municipality in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. Château-d'Œx has a population (as of December 2020) of 3,487.
In 2008, 19% of the population were resident foreign nationals.
Most of the population speaks French, with German being second most common, and English being third.
Medieval History
In the 10th. century, the Count of Gruyère conquered La Tine and the Creux de l'Enfer. Subsequently, it was merged with Rossinière to form a district. The church of St. Donat was consecrated and first mentioned in 1175. The village church was under the authority of the Cluniac Priory of Rougemont, which was founded in 1080.
At the beginning of the 14th. century, the castle at La Motte was rebuilt for the Counts of Gruyère. Another stronghold probably stood on the rocky spur which was known as Château Cottier.
After clearing the woods, the region was intensively farmed and produced barley, hay, hemp and cheese. In 1388 the villagers threw off the obligation to serve the nobility. Then, in 1403, against the wishes of the Count of Gruyère, the villagers joined a limited alliance with Bern.
Growth During the Early Modern Era
In 1555 Bern received the upper part of the county of Gruyère including Château-d'Œx. It became part of the German-speaking bailiwick of Saanen. The rights and freedoms of the villagers were now based on Bernese law and not on the Land Law of Moudon.
Under Bernese rule, the economy experienced a strong upswing. The common land was divided and sold before the end of the 16th. century. The alpine pastures were leased to private cheesemakers, who produced Gruyère cheese.
In the 18th. century, the inhabitants of the municipality went over the Col de Jaman to sell the cheese, from approximately 2,000 cows, at the market in Vevey. From there, it went to Marseille where it was exported to Asia and America.
End of the Ancien Régime and Modern Château-d'Œx
In 1798, Château-d'Œx came to the newly formed Canton of Léman. In 1800, a fire destroyed the wooden houses on the central hill. The houses had been built in this style and on the hill to avoid property taxes.
Thanks to the efforts of the Dean Philippe-Sirice Bridel, enough money was raised to rebuild the houses in stone. The municipality hired masons from Savoy, carpenters from Simmental and plasterers from the lower Gruyère lower uplands. In 1803, the Canton of Léman was dissolved with the Act of Mediation, and the municipality became part of the new canton of Vaud.
In 1849, the Institute Henchoz opened as a preparatory gymnasium, which replaced the older Latin school. The primary school received a new building in 1907.
In the 19th. century, the municipality suffered several outbreaks of livestock diseases. To protect the dairy industry, non-local herds were forbidden from passing through the municipality.
Cheese was no longer allowed to be carried across the mountains, but was transported on local draft horses. Due to customs taxes with the neighbouring Canton of Fribourg, cheese was carried on a route over the Col de Chaude to Villeneuve and from there to the shores of Lake Geneva, without crossing the Fribourg border.
The abolition of the inter-canton customs and taxes in 1848 led to the demolition of the Fribourg customs station on the main road that had linked Château-d'Œx with the grain and livestock markets. Changes in markets and improvements in animal husbandry led to more Simmental cattle being raised for meat rather than cheese production.
The construction of the road over the Col des Mosses (1865–71) and the construction of a new road to Bulle (1895) eased transportation.
The hospital, which had replaced the old hospital in 1926, was remodelled in 1979 into a nursing home and district hospital. At the same time, solar heating was added to the building.
The opening of the Montreux-Oberland Bernois Railway in 1904 made Château-d'Œx an attractive summer resort that was particularly appreciated by English tourists.
Half a dozen grand hotels with tennis courts sprang up in the municipality. A tennis club was founded in 1894. Other infrastructure included the suspension bridge at Turrian (1883), a swimming pool and a campsite (1932), a cable car (1945) and the Pont du Berceau (1945).
The agricultural sector remained important, with the emphasis again shifting to cheese. In the 20th. century, winter tourism became an important additional source of income. Hot air balloons and river rafting became common in the summer, while local crafts, sawmills and gravel mining are the main branches of the industrial sector.
Great War Internment
During the Great War, Switzerland accepted 68,000 sick or injured Prisoners of war from both sides of the conflict. These prisoners required medical care that they could not receive in internment camps due to a demand for doctors at the front to care for their own nation's injured.
Following an agreement between the belligerent nations and with support from the Red Cross, the internees were transferred to neutral Switzerland. The first trainload of injured soldiers arrived to cheering crowds at Château-d'Œx on the 30th. May 1916.
The British ambassador to Switzerland, Sir Evelyn Grant Duff, met the first train and recorded in his diary that evening:
"It is difficult to write calmly about it for the simple reason that I have never before in my life seen such a welcome accorded to anyone, although for 28 years I have been present at every kind of function in half the capitals of Europe. At Lausanne some 10,000 people, at 5am, were present at the station.
Our men were simply astounded. Many of them were crying like children, a few fainted from emotion. As one private said to me:
"God bless you, sir, it's like
dropping right into 'eaven
from 'ell."
Château d'Œx was the first community chosen to host the injured prisoners because its letter offering to help was the first one received by the Swiss government.
Over the following two years many resort communities, devastated as tourism vanished during the war, experienced growth as internees were housed in empty buildings and hotels and as their loved ones visited.
The Bank for International Settlements
In the second half of May 1940, the Bank for International Settlements relocated to Château d'Œx from Basel, out of fear of an imminent German invasion of Switzerland.
BIS President Thomas H. McKittrick and economic adviser Per Jacobsson moved into the nearby Château of Rougemont, while the rest of the staff found accommodation in the village. The BIS moved back to Basel in October 1940.
Notable People Associated With Château-d'Œx
Notable People Associated With Château-d'Œx include:
-- M. C. Escher (1898 - 1972), a Dutch graphic artist of woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints lived in Château d'Œx with his wife Jutta from 1935 to 1937. They left Italy where they had lived for many years after their nine-year-old son was forced to join the Fascist Ballila Youth Movement.
-- Kitty Muggeridge, a British writer and translator.
-- David Niven, an English actor, memoirist and novelist, lived in Château d'Œx from 1960.
-- George Rudolf Hanbury Fielding, a Major in the SOE in WWII; brought up in Château d'Œx and lived there again in his later years. SOE stands for the Special Operations Executive, a British World War II clandestine sabotage and resistance organisation.
-- Françoise Roch-Ramel, a Swiss pharmacologist.
-- Mike Horn (born 1966), a South African-born professional explorer and adventurer, lives in Château d'Œx.
-- Bruno Leuzinger (born in 1886 in Château d'Œx), a Swiss ice hockey player, competed in the 1920 Summer Olympics and the 1924 Winter Olympics.
-- Madeleine Berthod (born in 1931 in Château d'Œx), a Swiss former alpine skier, gold medallist at the 1956 Winter Olympics.
-- René Berthod (born 1948 in Château d'Œx), a retired Swiss alpine skier, competed in the 1976 Winter Olympics.
-- Edmond Plawczyk (born 1971) a Swiss speed snowboarder, lives in Château d'Œx.
The Château d'Œx Balloon Festival
The world-famous "Balloon Week" has been held each year since 1979 in the last week of January. Up to 100 balloonists gather for the festival each year.
The Breitling Orbiter 3, the first hot air balloon to circumnavigate the earth, took off from Château-d'Œx on the 1st. March 1999. Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones made the trip with a Rozière balloon, landing on the 21st. March in Egypt after 20 days and 40,805 km (25,355 mi).
Commemorative insignia (pins) are created for each festival, and are sold as pass-tickets to the museum and sportive manifestations for the whole duration of it.
A museum dedicated to Montgolfier type balloons is located in the centre of the town.
Music Festival
The popular annual Le Bois qui Chante music festival is held every year in the month of October.
William Beveridge
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 23rd. April 1908 marked the birth in Junee, New South Wales, Australia of William Beveridge.
William Ian Beardmore Beveridge was an Australian animal pathologist and director of the Institute of Animal Pathology, University of Cambridge. He was the author of 'The Art of Scientific Investigation' in 1957, and 'Influenza, the Last Great Plague', in 1977.
In 1937 Beveridge went with his first wife, Patricia, and infant son John, to work at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City, studying swine influenza virus, on which he worked with Richard Shope. They showed that it was serologically identical with the agent that caused the 1918-19 flu pandemic.
His research at Cambridge focused on pneumonia in pigs, maternal and neonatal behavior of pigs, and influenza in horses. He worked with Martin Kaplan, the chief of the Veterinary Public Health Unit of the World Health Organization.
Together they developed and edited an international nomenclature and classification of cancers of domestic animals, which occupied the whole of the 1974 and 1976 volumes of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.
Beveridge was chairman of the World Veterinary Association for 18 years (1957-75) and president at the congresses it held every four years.
The Death of William Beveridge
William died at the age of 98 on the 14th. August 2006.
