Joseph Sinel


Joseph Sinel was a naturalist and archaeologist.

Early life

Sinel was the youngest son of Philip Sinel, a wholesale tobacco merchant, and Charlotte Babot. When fifteen he entered Voisin & Co.’s furniture department, where he eventually became manager. His spare time was spent at low tide amongst the rocks of St Clement’s Bay, where the wealth of marine life in the pools fascinated him. He determined to devote his life to natural science.

Career

Sinel resigned his position at Voisin's, and started business as a taxidermist. He gave a number of lectures to a variety of groups. Papers which he contributed to "Science Gossip" brought him English correspondents, many of whom crossed to Jersey to obtain his help in collecting specimens. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace frequently wrote to him about topics of marine zoology. With his son-in-law, James Hornell, he built in 1891 a biological station at Havre Des Pas with aquarium tanks for the study of marine life and the supply of living specimens to students. He attempted to revive the local oyster fisheries. A Jersey Oyster Culture Company was formed and quantities of spat from Auray were placed in cage traps near Green Island, but the site proved insufficiently protected against storms, and the enterprise failed. In 1907 he became curator of the Société Jersiaise Museum, a post which he held until his death. Most of the zoological exhibits were his handiwork.

Psychical research

Sinel was also interested in psychical research. He wrote the book The Sixth Sense, which described his own experiments in telepathy. Sinel stated that he believed psychic phenomena to be result of the pineal body. A review in The Quarterly Review of Biology described it as "an entertaining little book... very weak in spots."

Publications

Nature Stories for the Young 3 volumes