, Wales (1958) The trade may have begun in 1828 when the first successful trip is said to have been made by Henri Ollivier. From the area around
Roscoff in
Brittany known as
Bro Rosko, Johnnies found a more profitable market in Britain than in France. They typically took their harvest across the
English Channel in July to store in rented barns, returning home in December or January. They could have sold their produce in Paris, but the roads and the railways were bad in the 19th century and going there across the English Channel and up the river
Seine was a longer and more difficult trip. Crossing the Channel to England was shorter and easier. As the early Johnnies were all
Breton-speakers, Wales was a favoured destination. Breton is a
Brythonic language related to
Welsh and
Cornish, so the Johnnies would have had an easier time picking up Welsh than
Germanic-descended English. The Johnnies who regularly visited Wales in the nineteenth century became known as ''
and subsequently as Johnny Onions or Onion Johnny'' in English. The golden age for Johnnies across the UK was during the 1920s; in 1929 nearly 1,400 Johnnies exported more than 9,000 tonnes of onions to the UK. The
Great Depression, followed by the
devaluation of the Pound in the early 1930s, ended the era. Trade suddenly fell, reaching a low in 1934, when fewer than 400 people imported under 3,000 tonnes. In the aftermath of World War II, in common with other goods, onions were subject to import restrictions in the UK and had to be traded through a single company. By 1973 the number of Johnnies had dropped to 160, trading 1,100 tonnes. By the end of the 20th century, the number of Johnnies fell to around 20. By 2008, reportedly only 15 Johnnies remained, and by 2022, with travel restrictions caused by
Brexit and the
COVID-19 pandemic, the profession was "wiped out". The Channel crossings are now made by ferry, but small sailing ships and steamers were used previously. The crossing could be hazardous. Seventy Johnnies died when the steamer
SS Hilda sank at
Saint-Malo in 1905. ==In culture==