A Bean Two Leaves and a Bud

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A FAMILY STORY ABOUT A COFFEE BEAN, TWO LEAVES AND A BUD FROM A TEA BUSH AND OTHER AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS THAT HELPED FORM THE BASIS OF AN ECONOMIC SYSTEM OF A NATION, TOGETHER WITH WHAT MAY HAVE BEEN THE EXPERIENCES OF THE ROWLANDS’ OF CEYLON AND THEIR DESCENDENTS IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE PLANTATION INDUSTRY TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE AND SUPPORT SERVICES THAT FORMED THE BASIS OF A ROBUST AND PROGRESSIVE ECONOMY.

In the 1500’s, the Portuguese took possession of the Maritime Provinces of Ceylon, to be replaced by the Dutch in the 17th Century. In 1796, Ceylon was taken possession of by the British and the Dutch expelled from its shores. From that period to 1815, the native chiefs boldly resisted the usurped authority of the invaders and were finally reduced to subjugation only after a desperate struggle and by such agencies that England alone was skilled to employ for the accomplishment of her objective.

Dedicated to the life of my Great-Grand-Father Richard William Rowlands and his Sinhalese friends Sir Charles Henry and Lady de Soysa who were philanthropists extraordinaire, Reverend.William.E.Rowlands of the Tamil Cooly Mission, all other Coffee, Tea, Rubber and Coconut Plantation Owners, Superintendents and their workers from the Madras Presidency of South India who came to Ceylon as free men and women rather than as slaves to work the Plantations and the Sinhalese, Tamils, Malays and other workers who laboured to establish the Estates, the Planters’ Association of Ceylon and Government Officers of all racial and cultural backgrounds in Ceylon at the time, who, to a large degree, treated the people of their communities, labourers and the less fortunate with kindness, honesty and generosity, to help develop a social structure and a plantation economy in the country that will always be a fitting tribute to their contribution to the people of Sri Lanka.

IN MEMORY OF

RICHARD ROWLANDS OF KENT.

A Distant Cousin who will always be fondly remembered for his kindness and generosity.

Sri Lanka

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In August 2006, my wife Ruth and I took her sister Jenny and her partner Michael to Sri Lanka for a two week Golf Tour.

Our itinerary included a visit to the Pinnawella Elephant Sanctuary and a three night stay at the Kandalama Hotel that we used our base to visit Polonaruwa and its surrounds, Dimbulla and a climb of the Sigiriya Rock Fortress. A well earned rest and relaxation after the journey from Australia.

We next stayed in Kandy and viewed the night Perahara, visited the Peradeniya Gardens and had a game of golf at the picturerous and beautifully laid out Victoria Golf Club.

We next drove up to Nuwara Eliya and stayed at the Grand Hotel. We had a game of golf at the challenging Nuwara Eliya Golf Club and toured the district.

We finished our journey in Colombo staying at the Galadari Hotel. We had a game of golf at the interesting Colombo Golf Club with a train line running through the third hole. During a shopping trip in the Fort, we came across the pictured wooden carved wall plaque of Da Vinci's "Last Supper" at the Cargills Store. The plaque is One Metre by Two Metres and weighs over 25 Kilos.

The store staff could not tell us the name of the artist who did the carving of this magnificent artwork, but we still thought it such an interesting piece of sculpture from one single piece of wood that we bought it and had it shipped back to Australia.

This wall plaque now hangs in the Dining Room of our home in Yarrawonga, Victoria, Australia.

Every time I look at it, I think of the person who would have spent hours painstakingly carving this beautiful scene of Jesus and his disciples at the taking of bread and wine to commemorate his last supper that took place over two thousand years ago and the Millions of Christians around the world who celebrate the Mass each Sunday in rememberance of his death and passion.

If there is someone in Sri Lanka who knows the person who did this carving, I would love to know who he or she is so that I can personally thank them on my next visit to Sri Lanka. I would also be interested to know whether they have done any other carvings such as this.

MAP OF SRI LANKA

FORWARD

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This project started in 2002 when I took my daughter Jacqueline, who was born in Australia to see Sri Lanka for the first time. We planned our touring holiday before we left Australia and made sure that we took in as much as possible in the two weeks we were on the Island. This included visits to the Pinnawella Elephant Sanctuary, a stay at the Kanadalama Hotel, an Elephant Safari at Habarana, a visit to the ruins at Polonaruwa and a climb of the Sigiriya Rock Fortress, later a viewing of the Kandy Perahara from the Queens Hotel in Kandy and also a Cultural Concert and a visit to the Labukelle Tea Factory on the way to our stay at the Hill Club in Nuwara Eliya.

The final stay in the mountains was at the Tea Factory Hotel in Kandapola, some 2,000 metres in the clouds.

On our return trip to Colombo we traveled via the Ella Gap to Yala and stayed at the Yala Safari Lodge that was destroyed by the Tsunami in 2006 and visited the Yala Sanctuary.

Hill Club, Nuwara Eliya

We next visited Galle and stayed at the Lighthouse Hotel and eventually got as far as Mt Lavinia and stayed a night at the Mt Lavinia Hotel and visited St Thomas’ College. We finished our tour at the Oberoi Hotel in Colombo for much earned rest of a few days.

A Dinner at my Aunt Christobel and Uncle Godwin Don Carolis’ home in Colombo then brought the biggest surprise that I was to get in my life. My cousin Christopher Don Carolis advised me that he had recently started communicating with a distant cousin named Richard Rowlands who was born in India and who now lived in Kent, England. We later, continued the conversation at the Colombo Rowing Club where he filled me in with the details of his latest discovery.

It turned out that Richard’s Grand-father and our Grand-father were half brothers and there was a generation of Rowlands’ in India, who were descendants of James Henry Rowlands who left Ceylon in 1886 for Ootacumund in South India, just after the birth of our Grand-father Arthur Percival Rowlands in 1885.

Colombo Rowing Club - Christopher Carolis (second from left), Jacqueline and Ed on right.

This was the first time that I had heard of our other relatives and I got in touch with Richard on returning to Australia. It turned out that he was researching the Rowlands Genealogy and was instrumental in getting me interested in finding more about the families that my Grand-father and father never spoke about.

When Richard sent me the Rowlands Family Tree that he had established, I realized that the Genealogy of the Rowlands Family that my Father had arrived at with Mr Altendorf in Colombo in 1958, that we presented to Sir Rodin Cutler who was the Australian High Commissioner in Ceylon at that time, to facilitate our migration to Australia during the period of the “White Australia Policy” was incomplete in some parts and incorrect in others.

I got to thinking that it was such a pity that we had not been given the opportunity to meet these relatives and get to know them, their personalities, their likes and dislikes and to get some understanding of the lives they may have led. I then decided to put together this family documentary from information that I gathered from talking to relatives and various publications on Internet websites, Public Libraries and various books.

Ed and Chris at the Colombo Cricket Club Grounds

When my son Christopher, who was also born in Australia and I took some of my Father’s ashes for burial in his Mother’s grave in Colombo in 2003, I took the opportunity to continue my research into the Rowlands family when I was in Sri Lanka and have continued to date, using the data from Richard Rowlands and others.

This is not a documentary about colonialism, but happens to fall into the time period after Europeans arrived in Ceylon. It’s a mixture of fact and fiction. I have placed our relatives in the period of the events that would have taken place during their lifetime to try and understand how the events of the day may have experienced and shaped their lives and the relationships they may have had with the people they may have mixed with on a day to day basis. To a large extent their lives and the antecedents of their spouses provide the cultural mix of our fore-bears and may help explain why the Rowlands’ of today are the people we are.

I am proud of my Sri Lankan heritage and that the Rowlands’ of Ceylon and India are descended from people of many races and cultures.

I do not pretend to be a writer and therefore the words in this documentary are not all mine but also those of the several authors that I have used to bring it all together in some chronological order to try and show the changes that took place in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) after the arrival of Europeans in the Sixteenth Century and the events of the Nineteenth Century, after the arrival of the first Rowlands’ in Ceylon.

I hope that my children and other relatives find this documentary useful for them to get some understanding of the times that our fore-fathers and mothers lived in.

The first part concludes at the death of Richard William Rowlands. The second part of this story is the Twentieth Century and will include the experiences of the next generations of the Rowlands’ of India and Ceylon and the migration of some of the families to Australia and England and other distant shores.

This is only the start of the story of the Rowlands’ of Ceylon, there are a more stories waiting to be told.

I apologise if I have made any historical errors and would appreciate the comments of anyone who wishes to advise me of any corrections.

Any other descendants of the extended Rowlands’ family are welcome to contact me on edrowlan@bigpond.net.au and I will endevour to incorporate the stories of their relatives in this document, if they so desire.

Acknowledgements

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I acknowledge with sincere thanks, the contribution made to this genealogical study of the Rowlands Family, made possible by extracts from the following websites and books, as at the date below.

• Dilma Tea’s - History of Ceylon Tea:- Various Ferguson’s Directories, Photo Albums, Mercantile Lore by Sir Thomas Villiers, Important Events in Ceylon History 1796 – 1929, etc.
• Under a Tropical Sun-Lachlan Macquarie and the 73rd Regiment in Sri Lanka 1796-1821:- Lachlan Macquarie’s Journal 1796
• Victor Melder Sri Lanka Library – Picture Library
• The Portuguese in Ceylon by Marco Ramerini
• History of the Dutch in Ceylon by Marco Ramerini
• The English in Ceylon
• Malays in Sri Lanka by B.A.Hussainmiya, Ph.D
• Kandian Wars
• The British Replace the Dutch
• Days of Old – (By an Old Planter)
Chapter 1 – My First Trip to the Jungle.
• The 1818 Rebellion and the Execution of Keppetipola Dissawe
by M.D.(Tony) Saldin
• The Rifle and Hound in Ceylon by Samuel White Baker
• Dr Alice de Boer and some pioneer Burgher women doctors by Deloraine Brohier
Padre Rowlands of Ceylon by R.P.Butterfield M.A.,B.A.
On the Trail of a Legend by Udena.R.Attygalle
75 Years at Mount by N.M.P.Billimoria
Freemason Lodges of Ceylon. www.sphinxlodge.org/other.htm and www.lodgebonniedoon.org/about.htm
The De Soysa Charitaya (Saga) Edited by V.S.M De Mel

Chapter 1. 1505 – The Portuguese.

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The Portuguese who took possession of the Maritime Provinces of Ceylon in 1505 obtained enormous financial benefits from the spices of Ceylon that they traded in Europe and after 150 years left behind an Eurasian race of Portuguese speaking people who would become known as Portuguese Burghers.

In 1500, there were three kingdoms in Ceylon, Vira Parakrama Bahu (1484-1509) was the King of Kotte in the South-west, Senasammata Vikrama Bahu (1469-1511) was King in the Hill Country and Pararajasekeran (1469-1511) was the King of the Tamil Kingdom in the North-East.

Portugese Caravel

In 1505, ships of the fleet of the first Portuguese to visit Ceylon, with Dom Lourenco de Almeida were accidentally blown into the Port of Galle. In the last months of that year Dom Lourenco’s fleet anchored off Colombo and a memorial of this first landing called a “Padrao” with a cross above the Royal Arms of Portugal surmounting it, was erected on a boulder overlooking the Bay of Colombo. They entered into a treaty with the King of Kotte and built a factory to process cinnamon that was in abundant supply. In 1518, the Viceroy Lopo Soares de Albergaria landed at Colombo with a large fleet and began building a small triangular fort named “Noosa Senhora das Virtudes” or “Santa Barbara”

Padrao in Colombo Harbour

In 1524 they dismantled it and kept an agent in the Island under the protection of the Sinhalese King of Kotte. They established royal Monopolies in Cinnamon, pepper and musk. Giving up Colombo was a mistake as the colony of Muslim merchants immediately attempted to win back their supremacy in the Kingdom of Kotte and to re-conquer the cinnamon trade. However, they were defeated by the Portuguese still present on the Island. The Mappillas (Malabar Muslims) who up to 1539 nourished a dynastic conflict in the Kingdoms of Sitawaka and Kotte, opposed the Portuguese until in 1538 at Vedelai, Martin Afonos de Sousa and in 1539, Miguel Ferreira at Negombo, defeated the Mappillas and took away their cinnamon trade.

Before the arrival of the Portuguese, the kings of Ceylon were facing a Muslim Arab invasion from the West and a Mogul invasion from the East. Ceylon was under the protection of China and Sinhalese kings were paying ‘Kappam’ just before the Portuguese came. The Portuguese presence was a blessing in disguise as they hunted down and wiped out the Muslim Arabs throughout the island and the Chinese parasitism on Ceylon came to a halt. With the encouragement of the King of Kotte, the missionaries began the work of converting the peoples of Ceylon to Christianity and churches were built in the fishing villages on the western coast. It was a time of almost constant warfare, especially against the Kandyan Kingdom which resisted strongly the Portuguese attempts to promote Roman Catholicism. The main export commodities also included cardamoms, sandalwood, arecanuts, ebony, elephants, ivory, pearls and small quantities of tobacco, silk and kapok.

St Don Bosco Church, Wattala

In 1544, the King of Jaffna massacred more than 600 Christians in the island of Mannar. However, in 1545, when the Portuguese threatened retaliation, the King of Jaffna submitted and paid tribute to the Portuguese. In October 1550, the Viceroy Afonso de Noroha arrived in Ceylon and sacked Sitawaka with 500 Portuguese soldiers who were stationed at Kotte. But the Viceroy lost a good opportunity of establishing the supremacy of Portugal over the entire Island by not stationing soldiers in the captured towns. The treaty was renewed with the King of Kotte and in 1551 the Portuguese assumed the role of Protector of the Kotte Kingdom.

In November 1554, Duarte de Eca with 500 soldiers built a new fortress in Colombo. In 1556, 70,000 people who lived in the communities of fishermen on the sea coast north and south of Colombo were converted to Christianity. The King of Kotte, Darmapala was re-christened as Dom Joao Perya Bandara and the Queen re-christened as Dona Catherina. Following the king’s example a few nobles adopted the Portuguese title of Dom (Sir), the Portuguese manners and language.

In 1560, Viceroy Dom Costantino de Braganca with 1,200 men conquered the town of Nallur, the Capital of the Kingdom of Jaffna and soon after proceeded to the island of Mannar where a fort was built. In July 1565, the Portuguese transferred their Court and Capital from Kotte to Colombo. The conversions to Christianity had alienated the majority of Sinhalese on the West coast who then surrounded the Portuguese at Colombo. In 1574, the Portuguese took the offensive and they plundered Negombo, Kalutara and Beruwela and drove out the Sinhalese garrisons at Nagalagama and Mapane and ravaged the districts of Weligama and Chilaw. In 1587, Raja Sinha, the King of Kandy and Sitawaka began a siege of Colombo. The fort was protected by fortifications with 12 bastions that the Sinhalese assaulted many times but always failed. In February 1588, they abandoned the siege and until the end of the seventeenth century the Portuguese were masters of the coast forts of Colombo, Galle, Kalutara and Negombo.

In 1591, Andre Furtado de Mendoca invaded Jaffna and set up a new king at Nallur. The Portuguese also attempted to occupy Kandy but were met with failure.

In 1597, the Portuguese began to fortify Galle. The same year, King Dom Joao Dharmapala died without heirs and in accordance with his Will his Kingdom was donated to the King of Portugal. Thus, King Philip of the then united Kingdoms of Spain and Portugal was proclaimed the King of Ceylon and the whole territory of the Kingdom of Kotte, only Kandy was still not under Portuguese rule.

The Portuguese then attempted to unify the island under their control. In 1603, Dom Jeronimo de Azevedo attempted to occupy the abandoned fort at Balane, the key to Kandy, however a few days later he was forced to withdraw and the fort was lost. In 1611, De Azevedo marched with 700 Portuguese and Lascarins to Kandy re-taking the Fort at Balane, where he left a garrison. He was also successful in taking Kandy, which he then proceeded to burn and the King of Kandy submitted himself to the Portuguese. Although not destroyed, the Kingdom of Kandy had been neutralized.

In 1621, the Tamil Patriarch and Pretender to the Throne Cankli Kumaran fought the Portuguese forces under the command of Felipe De Oliveriya and were defeated. The soldiers destroyed hundreds of Hindu temples and left the Tamil kingdom in ruins.

The Tamils thereby lost their Kingdom, their sovereignty, independence and homelands.

In 1624, the Portuguese occupied and fortified Trincomalee.

In 1630, Dom Constantino de Sa, under pressure from the Viceroy, began a march with a small Portuguese army of 400 Portuguese soldiers, 200 Portuguese Casados (married men of the army reserve) and about 4,400 Lascarins to attack the Capital of King Senarata at Badulla by crossing the jungles of Uva. They sacked and burnt the deserted town but on the return to Colombo, were attacked by the Sinhalese and nearly 4,000 Lascarins deserted the Portuguese and joined the enemy. For the Sinhalese this was a decisive victory from which only 130 men survived and surrendered. After this victory, King Senarat captured Saparagamuwa and set Colombo under siege, but after three months the Sinhalese army was forced to withdraw.

Ceylon during the Portuguese Period

Thereafter, the Portuguese occupation of the country that was to last 150 years under a military form of government where martial law chiefly prevailed was weakened and vulnerable to the Dutch forces.

The Portuguese were from the beginning (Alfonso de Albuquerque) the first to experiment a colonization based on colonies of Portuguese citizens “Casados”. Since the Portuguese women were few, mixed marriages were encouraged between the Portuguese and Asians. Albuquerque tried to create a new Portuguese nation in Asia to make up for the lack of people from Portugal. This method of settlement was extremely successful.

After a century of this colonization, in practically every outpost of the empire, there were colonies of mixed Portuguese, that spoke Portuguese, were Catholic and were better suited to the tropical climates that the European born Portuguese. Thanks to this strategy, the Portuguese succeeded in withstanding the siege of the Dutch in Ceylon for sixty years.

The Portuguese left a Eurasian community (Portuguese Burghers) with surnames like Perera, Silva, Pieris, de Mel, de Soysa, etc, the Roman Catholic religion, Music (Baila), dress, food and Titles such as Sinno, Dona, Don, etc and a Portuguese Creole language, a dialect of which until recently was spoken by people of mixed African decent who are descended from a Portuguese regiment of soldiers from Mozambique who settled in the village of Sellankandal near the town of Puttalam, sometime in the seventeenth century.

In the presentation below their descendants sing in the creole language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9OuqFkSfwA&feature=related

An interesting presentation about the Kaffir community in modern Sri Lanka.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXvLYV9MZLI&feature=related

The Portuguese brought western culture into Ceylon. The Kandyan Kings were educated by the Portuguese teachers. The Kandyan Royal Court had Portuguese ministers as advisers. But King Rajasinghe II was not happy with the Portuguese. The Portuguese came to trade with Ceylonese, but because of the foolishness of the natives, the Portuguese became their masters. The trade commodities were bought at minimum prices and the Portuguese made a huge profit selling the spices at European markets.

In the presentation below a dance that has lasted over 500 years is enacted by the descendants of the Portuguese.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeu7mkSYKcA&feature=related

The Ceylonese were unhappy about losing their freedom and lands to the Portuguese and they were totally distressed at seeing the Government from Lisbon hijacking the country. A beautiful country and culture was being vandalized by the Portuguese and Catholicism and the

Portuguese language was being forced down their throats. They wanted religious freedom and political freedom from Portugal. They wanted Holland, a powerful enemy of Portugal to come to their aid. Even though Denmark offered to help, the King of Kandy wanted the help of the Dutch as there was a Dutch-Portuguese War raging.

When the Dutch ships landed in Batticaloe and communicated with the King of Kandy for allied action against the Portuguese, King Rajasinghe II immediately seized the opportunity to remove the Portuguese out of Ceylon.

Chapter 2 1646 – The Dutch

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The Spanish rule in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities had resulted in a massacre of thousands who were Protestants. The Dutch were determined to stop the spread of Roman Catholism around the world.

Dutch East India Company Logo

In May 1602, the first Dutch expedition arrived at Batticaloa, a harbour which the Portuguese never occupied, and established friendly relations with the King of Kandy against the Portuguese.

The Dutch who had made a careful study of the country’s potential for trade, in 1638, at the invitation of Rajasinghe II agreed to drive the Portuguese out of the Maritime Provinces. The Dutch were not aggressors and they were invited by the Ceylonese to liberate the country from the Portuguese aggression and forced conversions.

Replica of Dutch Galleon

They followed the Laws of the Nations by signing the Kandyan Treaty of 1638 with Rajasinghe II (1635-1687), the Kandyan King of the Hill Country and soon embarked on a war against their common enemy. As such the Dutch had a legal right to be on the island as a protector of the country.

They first occupied Batticaloa and in 1639 captured the harbour city of Trincomalee and the Fort that Rajasinghe II had offered the French as a balance of power against the Dutch. In 1640 the Dutch liberated Negombo and Galle with the help of the Sinhalese army and the Dutch Navy. In reality these forts were in marginal areas were the Kotte Kingdom had no influence. It was Tamils who lived around these forts, except in the case of the Galle Fort.

As such forts became the property of the Dutch East India Company, King Rajasinghe II wanted to demolish all of them. But the Dutch were not paid their dues against the war with the Portuguese and as a result the Dutch did not want to demolish them. The Treaty of 1638 had conditions where the Sinhalese King had to maintain and support the Dutch forces as they were waging war on behalf of the King against the Portuguese.

Canal around Dutch Fort Jaffna

The Treaty had two copies and the Dutch copy had a clause for the Dutch to own and operate the seaports. The Kandyan copy did not have this clause. The King was not abiding by the treaty as his copy was interpreted as the ports would come back to the King of Kandy and he was fulfilling his part of the obligation.

The Dutch took all the ports and forts and the rest of the lands and replaced the Portuguese. As such the Dutch never left Ceylon and started ruling the parts where they seized power as the agents of the King. The people in these areas were Tamils and they accepted their new ruler without much reservation. Only in Galle and Negombo the chance of a Portuguese attack remained a real threat.

King Rajasinghe II always wanted to rid Ceylon of both Portuguese and the Dutch by setting one against the other. At times when Dutch officers or Commanders offended him he ordered their assassination. At times he massacred a ship load of Dutch for minor misbehavior of their Captain. This kind of cruel, crafty and unpredictable behavior made the Dutch determined to keep the forts and vast amount of lands they captured.

Negombo Fort

The King and his courtiers were paranoid and did not offer the help they should have offered an ally. As such, most of the battles were waged by the Dutch and the Dutch suffered heavy losses, but when it came to sharing the loot from the captured forts like Galle, the Kandyan King and his forces were there for the occasion and the Dutch gave half the war assets to the Kandyan King.

The Dutch carried out their war and utterly destroyed the power of the Portuguese by capturing Colombo in 1656 and finally the Tamil Kingdom and Jaffna in 1658.

The war with Portugal was against their ruler the King of Spain. Once Portugal obtained its freedom from Spain, the Netherlands settled for peace with Portugal. They then divided the occupied areas of Ceylon amicably under a treaty signed in the Portuguese enclave of Goa in India.
Transport on a Dutch Canal at Negombo

They pursued a far more progressive policy than their predecessors in the administration of the country, but through the Dutch East India Company, adopted a selfish and oppressive approach to commerce and trade. Rajasinghe II and the Dutch were both playing a double game trying to outwit each other. They never implemented the Treaty of 1638. Dutch ruled all the Tamil provinces and brought Tanjore Tamil slaves from their Indian colonies to work Cinnamon gardens in the Western Province.

Like the Portuguese before them, they attempted to unify the entire country, but failed and they too were confined to the coastal areas. Unlike the Portuguese, they enjoyed a reputation of having contributed to the economic development of the country.

The Dutch colonists established a lucrative trade with Holland, India, Persia and the East Indies. They encouraged the cultivation of cinnamon, which became their staple export. Stringent laws were passed to safeguard the industry; the peeling of cinnamon, the selling or exporting of a single stick save by the appointed officers, or willful injury to a cinnamon plant were made a crime punishable by death.

Stripping Cinnamon

Under the Dutch agriculture was encouraged, but only for their own benefit. A system of forced labour was used to cultivate vast tracts of coconut along the sea coast and they were responsible for the unbroken groves of coconut plantations along the Western shore line.

They did much to improve the pearl-oyster fisheries in the Gulf of Mannar and were the first to augment internal communication through a network of canals, which helped them establish trade connections with the interior. The longest canal that they constructed connects the Negombo Lagoon from the Kelani River up to Puttalam, the 72km long canal was constructed to transport coconut products to the Colombo Harbour. They maintained strong garrisons to protect their trading interests and to guard against hostility from the Kandyans.

The Dutch brought cultural and linguistic freedom for the people who were not with the Portuguese rulers. The backbone of Portuguese power lay with the fishermen that they had converted to their religion. The Dutch were the first to trial a republic in Europe long before France and their attitude was more democratic than any other European country. They tolerated the King of Kandy who carried out brutal assassinations against their Commanders whenever he felt offended or suspected disrespect.

Cinnamon Sorters

The Dutch tolerated one of the worst enemies they fought in battle – the Portuguese. Thus they were able to capture Ceylon without any resistance from the natives.

The Dutch started ruling and expanding their areas and the King of Kandy searched for another European power to do his dirty work and for this he approached France, but he had no success and he died in 1687. After their conquest, the Dutch also attempted to found a colony of Dutch citizens, dubbed “Burgher”. This was attempted first under Maetsuyker (Governor from 1646 to 1650), but at the end of his government and later under Van Goens (Governor from 1662 to 1663 and 1665 to 1675), there were only 68 married free-burghers on the island. Such a policy was clearly a failure as only a few Dutch families settled on the island. In the first 30 years of Dutch rule in Ceylon, the Burgher community never exceeded 500 in number and was mainly composed of sailors, clerks, tavern-keepers and discharged soldiers.

Peeling Cinnamon

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) to support this emigration facilitated in any case, the Burgher. Burghers alone had the privilege to keep shops, were given liberal grants of land with the right of free trade. Whenever possible they were preferred to natives for appointment to office. Only Burghers had the right to baking bread and shoemaking. Most of them were employees of the Company.

The marriage between a Burgher and a native or an Indo-Portuguese woman was permitted only if she professed the Christian religion. However, the daughters of this union had to be married to a Dutchman, as Van Goens said: “…. so that our race may degenerate as little as possible”. In the eighteenth century a growing European community comprised of a mixture of Portuguese, Dutch, Sinhalese and Tamil had developed in Ceylon.

Baling Cinnamon

They dressed European, were adherents to the Dutch Reformed Church and spoke Dutch or Portuguese. With passing of time, the Burgher community developed into two different communities – Dutch Burghers and Portuguese Burghers.

The Dutch Burghers were those who could demonstrate European ancestry (Dutch or Portuguese) through the male line, were white, Dutch Reformed and spoke Dutch.

The Portuguese Burghers (later called Mechanics) were those who had supposed European ancestry, had darker skin, were Catholic and spoke Creole Portuguese.

The European community produced all the priests (Predikants) of the Dutch Reformed Church.

During the Dutch period, the growth of the community was constant. A small, but steady influx of newcomers from Europe mixed with the families, which had settled on the island for generations. Thanks to this, the Burgher community was able to retain its open character and the heterogeneous cultural traditions.

In the last decade of Dutch rule in the island, the Burghers formed a detachment of citizen soldiers. They defended the ramparts of Colombo during the Anglo-Dutch war.

Dutch Reformed Church – Colpetty

The regular Dutch army at that time was made up of Malay/Javanese soldiers led by the Princely class of Malay/Javanese families who were exiled to the island by the Dutch in Java. A host of royal families from the Dutch East Indies spent their time in Ceylon as political exiles. The other place of exile was Cape Town in South Africa, where a Malay community emerged in later years.

Below is an interesting presentation on the Muslim people of Sri Lanka.

http://www.missionislam.com/knowledge/srilanka.htm

The Dutch also had another European force named the Swiss deMeuron Regiment under their command that was stationed in Trincomalee. In 1781, the French Authorities helped raise a new regiment in the Swiss Canton, soliciting recruits in and around Neuchatel. The regiment was called the deMeuron Regiment, taking its name from the commander, Comte Charles de Meuron. In 1786 the deMeuron Regiment was sent to Ceylon from Cape Town and while in Ceylon the regiment answered to the Dutch Governor Van Anglebeek and to Colonel Pierre de Meuron, the brother of Comte Charles de Meuron who had returned to Switzerland.

At the time of the British conquest in 1796 there were about 900 families of Dutch Burghers residing in Ceylon, concentrated in Colombo, Galle, Matara and Jaffna.

After the British took over the colony from the Dutch, some Dutch Burghers chose to go to Batavia, while others chose to stay in Ceylon.

Chapter 3 1796 – The British

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The British take over from the Dutch and begin the process of unifying the country under British rule.

In 1795, during the Napoleonic War in Europe, the Prince of Orange had issued instructions from Kew in England to the Dutch Colonies to permit the entrance of British troops and ships of war for the purpose of preventing them falling into the hands of the French republicans and orders were given to the military to use force should they be refused entry. Lord Hobart, Governor of Fort St George, invited the Dutch Governor Van Anglebeck to place his colony in the possession of the British, to be restored to the Dutch at the general peace, at the same time threatening force is case of resistance. The local Dutch Government decided to adhere to the Stadtholder, but to defend themselves at Colombo, Galle and Trincomalee, if the British attempted hostilities. The reply to Lord Hobart stated that they were not ready to put Dutch settlements under the protection of the British Monarch. The proposal was not accepted by Lord Hobart and British forces comprised of the 19th Regiment of Foot “The Green Howards” and the 73rd Regiment “Royal Highland” “Perthshire” that was commanded by Colonel Burton Gage Barbutt arrived from India at Trincomalee, but difficulties were made by the local Commandant and the British Officers reverted to their instructions and required the delivery of the Fort, which was refused and subsequently captured by force on the 26th August 1795, two companies of the DeMeuron Regiment were taken prisoner by the British. James Welsh – a Junior Officer with the British Contingent that consisted of three European and five native corps, under the command of Colonel Steuart of His Majesty’s 72nd Regiment, in his book Military Reminiscences (Published 1830) states that quote:- “The Harbor of Trincomalee situated near the north-eastern extremity of the island of Ceylon, is one of the best in the Indian Ocean; it was defended by numerous works (Fort Fredrick) and might have given us much trouble to take, but fortunately the garrison were quiet merchants and mechanics who by their protracted defense, would have hazarded their all for the bubble reputation and therefore very speedily surrendered“.

Batticaloe fell on 18th September and Jaffna without resistance on 28th September.

The Dutch East India Company went bankrupt and could not pay its troops. In the tradition of the time, the Demeuron Regiment entered British service. The transfer took place under the guidance of Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, Secretary of War for Britain and Hugh Cleghorn, a friend of Comte Charles de Meuron. The rank and file were paid arrears due to them and 860 Demeuron registered in the British Army.

British Officer

The prisoners at Trincomalee and Colombo were released and Comte de Meuron and his brother Pierre were given the rank of General in the British Army. Under the terms of the agreement, finalized in 1798, the DeMeuron Regiment entered into full service with the British Army. It consisted of 2 battalions of 5 companies of infantry each.

The DeMeuron regiment was then transferred to India against the Marathas and Mysore and later to the Mediterranean to garrison Malta and took no part in the Kandyan War of 1803 or 1815.

The history of India and Sri Lanka in the period 1796 to 1821 is closely connected with the convict colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land.

Fort Fredrick Trincomale with Coat of Arms

Captain Lachlan Macquarie arrived in Bombay on 3rd August 1788 and thereafter his life was irrevocably linked to the people and events in South Asia. The region shaped his military career, gave him his first experiences in independent command, provided him with the opportunities for promotion and helped him establish life long friendships as well as important patronage links.

It was during this time that he gained experiences that would prepare him for his later governorship of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land. The journals of Captain Lachlan Macquarie state that on the 4th February 1796 a British Force under the command of Colonel Stuart left Madras and Bombay for Negombo.

The command of the European Brigade consisting of the 52nd, 73rd, 77th Regiments was given to Colonel Banivea and that of the Bombay Grenadier Sepoy Brigade was given to Major Wiseman. They landed at Negombo without experiencing any contact with enemy troops. On 8th February the army commenced its march to Colombo making their first contact with the Dutch force across the Mahaveli Ganga (River).

Lachlan Macquarie as Governor of New South Wales

A gun fight took place during the day, but during the night the Dutch abandoned their Entrenchments on the opposite side of the river and went off in such a hurry that they took none of their guns, but threw them into the river. On the 12th the Dutch with a force of 845 Europeans and 772 Malays, attacked the British , but were repulsed with great loss, their commander Colonel De Lisle was mortally wounded and about 150 men killed and wounded. On Sunday 14th February Major Agnew the Adjutant-General was sent to Colombo under a Flag of Truce to summon the Dutch Governor Van Anglebeck to surrender the Fort to the British Arms or suffer the consequence. The Governor requested a Cessation of Hostilities for 24 hours and on the 16th February the Articles of Capitulation were signed by both parties surrendering the Town and Fortress of Colombo – with all its Dependencies on the Island of Ceylon. The terms of the agreement cast no obligation on the British to restore Ceylon to the Dutch at the peace, though at the time it was anticipated that this would be done. The surrender of Colombo to the British by capitulation was completed on 19th February 1796. Maritime Ceylon was to be governed from Madras.

Galle Fort Ramparts

The bravery and discipline of the Malay troops appealed to the British who decided to retain their services and formed a full battalion in Ceylon. Captain Macquarie was entrusted with the Command of a Detachment to take possession of the Town and Fortress of Point de Galle. Starting their march on 19th February, they passed through Panadura the next day, then Bentota the next and Ambalangoda, reaching Point de Galle on the 23rd February.

Captain Macquarie was received by the Dutch Governor Fretz, all the Members of the Council and the Heads of Officers Military and Civil of the Dutch Administration and principal officers and other gentlemen of the Settlement. The Governor presented Captain Macquarie in a most solemn and formal manner, on a large Silver Salver, the keys of the different Gates of the Garrison; making a short but appropriate Speech on the occasion, in doing which he was however, very much affected and shed tears, as did several of the Gentlemen around him. Captain Macquarie was moved by the scene and not wishing to prolong their distress made a short reply to the Governor. During his stay in Galle, at the invitation of the former Governor, he stayed at his residence and they became firm friends.

In 1814, after returning to India and England on more than one occasion, Captain Macquarie was prompted to Colonel and in 1814 with the 73rd Regiment of Foot became the Governor of the Colony of New South Wales in Australia. For four years the officers and soldiers of the 73rd Regiment became an integral part of the everyday life of the convict colonies in Australia.

Dutch Reformed Church, Wolvendall, Pettah

The Honorable.F.North (afterwards Earl of Guilford), Governor, issued a Proclamation on the 12th of October 1798, that made Ceylon a Crown Colony.

During the same year Rajadhi Raja Sinha died and Sri Wikrama Raja Sinha was raised to the Kandyan throne by the wily Prime Minister, Pilima Talauve; the Queen’s brother Muttuswamy escaped to Colombo.

The Dutch Governor, Van Anglebeck died at Colombo on 3rd September 1799. In December of the same year, Pilima Talauve, anxious to become King, offered to assassinate the King of Kandy, if the British would assist him to ascend to the throne. The offer was rejected by Governor North, who was more interested in founding a financially viable colony. He created the first Botanical Garden at Ortafula, Peliyagoda on the Kelaniya River, Joseph Joinville being Curator. He also founded the first English Seminary for the indigenous population in Colombo on 15th December 1798.

Governor North on 19th March 1800, sent General Macdowal as his ambassador to the King of Kandy to negotiate the possible take over of the Kandyan territory, but negotiations proved unfruitful.

Following the takeover of the Maritime Provinces from the Dutch, the British transferred some of their Administrators who were English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish and their families from India to Colombo to commence the establishment of “British Rule” in Ceylon.

Among them was the first “Rowlands” to land in Ceylon. The Rowlands’ family settled in Pettah and Henry Rowlands was born on 5 October 1800 and baptized at the Dutch Reformed Church, Wolvendall. He married Sarah McKilroy on 19 September 1818 at St Peter’s Church, Fort, Colombo.

St Peters Church, Fort, Colombo

He later became a Private in the 1st Ceylon Regiment that was formed in 1802, as a Drummer. The regiment was disbanded in 1827.

Their children were, Sophia Rowlands, born 18 August 1821 and Fredrick Rowlands, born 9 February 1832. British Army records show that Sophia Rowlands got married in 1834.

A second son William Rowlands was born in 1802 and he too became a Private in the 1st Ceylon Regiment as a Bugler.

Another regiment was also formed at the same time, namely, the 2nd Ceylon Regiment “Ramsays” and disbanded in 1821.

In 1802, in accordance with the Treaty of Amiens, the littoral regions of Ceylon were ceded to the British. The British Government decided to transfer the maritime provinces of Ceylon completely from the East India Company and place them under the control of the Crown and thus on 1 January 1802, Ceylon was attached to the dominions of Great Britain.

In April of the same year, through the machinations of Pilima Talauve, serious aggression was made on British subjects.

The first Governor of British Ceylon, Fredric North (1798-1805) made elaborate plans to establish the Malay Regiment, modeled on the Sepoy Regiments of India. The Malays were dressed for the first time in Scarlet and White Uniform of a regular regiment of infantry. On 25 April 1801, the regiment was increased to ten Company’s by recruitment of former Dutch Malays from St Helena and transferred to the British regular army as a light infantry corps, also know by the name of “Colonel’. Thus was born the Malay Ceylon Regiment, the first ever Malay Regiment to be formed and receive the Queen’s Colours in 1802. Their Colonel was General Sir Josiah Champagne, GCH.

The British not only ‘martialised’ the Malays to serve in their native army, but also took firm steps to strengthen the numbers of Malays in Ceylon by inviting Malay families from the areas in the Peninsular which were under their control.

British Officer

In 1802, the Sultan of Kedah had sent a contingent of his Malay subjects to serve in Ceylon who were also joined by a number of Malays from Penang, Malacca and Singapore. Special military schools were founded to teach the soldiers and their children to be proficient in both Malay and English. A special library for the soldiers lent books, publications and manuscripts in Malay.

On 31st January 1803, hostilities against the King of Kandy commenced.

The British dispatched two separate forces into Kandyan territory, one under General Hay Macdowell commanding a detachment from Colombo and the other under Colonel Barbut from Trincomalee. These included the Malay Ceylon Regiment and the all Sinhalese 2nd Ceylon Regiment and the mixed Malay Sinhalese 1st Ceylon Regiment.

The British also discovered that the Ruler of Kandy also had his own Malay army, known as ‘Padikara Peruwa’ (paid levies - mercenaries), originally formed by the Sinhalese Kandyan Ruler Kirthi Sri Rajasinghe (1747-82). In 1803 there were nearly 400 of them who had run away from Dutch oppression into Kandy and welcomed in the Kandy Court, some of whom became the King’s bodyguards. Their chief was decorated with the highest title of ‘Muhandiram’ that was reserved for local chieftains.

Despite early successes the army soon suffered a number of setbacks. The Chief Minister responsible for guiding the British into Kandy had greatly inflated the extent of the King’s unpopularity and the resistance proved fierce. The two divisions of the British Army took possession of Kandy on 21st February 1803. Muttuswami, the fugitive Prince was proclaimed King by the British on 8th March. Pilima Talauve and Governor North met at Dambadeniya on 3rd May, where Pilima Talauve renewed his treacherous overtures, which were again rejected.

A Malay Prince named Sangunglo, who escaped to Kandy, was the Commander of the Malay army in the Kandyan Kingdom.

Kandyan Chief

The brave Sangunglo created havoc by his daring exploits against the British army who advanced to Senkadagala, into the heart of the Kandyan capital during this war. He fought bravely, engaged in hand to hand combat, but lost his life in the battle at the hands of the British Commander, Major Davy. The Kandyan forces resorted to fighting a guerilla war and after disease ravaged the garrison left behind and a number of Sinhalese and Malay soldiers defected to the Kandyans, including a soldier of Malay descent named ‘William O’Deen” who a year later became the first Ceylonese to be exiled to Australia, the Kandyans counter attacked and on the 24th June, seized Senkadagala. Barbut was taken prisoner and executed and after Major Davie capitulated, he was allowed to retire his troops and Muttuswami as far as Lewella. On 25th June Muttuswami was delivered up at the desire of the Kandyans and put to death. On the 26th June, the retreating British troops were massacred on the banks of the flooding Mahaveli River, with the exception of Major Davie and Corporal George Barnsley of the 19th Infantry whom the King spared. Captain D.Humphreys and another Officer escaped, leaving only four survivors. This eventually brought victory to the Kandyan King, Sri Wickrema Rajasinghe. Major Davie died in Kandy in captivity in 1812.

Following the British defeat in Kandy, their Malay Commanders, Princes Nuruddin and Saifuddin were captured and brought before the Kandyan King. Even though they refused to prostate themselves in front of the King in the manner of customary obeisance, the King offered them a position as his own commanders and to become princes among his Malay subjects. The princely brothers refused the offer, explaining that they had taken an oath to the King of England and the acceptance of his offer was tantamount to treachery. The Malay princes refused to budge even under torture. The enraged King put them to death and threw their bodies in the forest to be eaten by wild animals. The ill treatment of their princes and the denial of a decent Muslim burial sent a chilling message to the rest of his Malay subjects who had served and fought for him loyally.

Governor North was especially aggrieved to learn about the sacrifice and martyrdom of the princes and set up a special Malay Committee to compensate the widows of the slain soldiers. A general rebellion erupted in British occupied territory on hearing of the Kandyan invasion, but was quickly suppressed.

Malay Man

Governor North maintained pressure on the Kandyan frontier with numerous attacks and in 1804 dispatched a force under Captain Arthur Johnson towards Senkadagala and once again the Kandyans defeated the British in the mountainous terrain they called home. The Kandyans emboldened by their successes, captured Katuwana a frontier town. This and the 1803 victory were to be the Kandyan’s last meaningful successes. In February 1804, equipped with a handful of captured six pound cannon the Kandyan army advanced through the mountain passes as far as the city of Hanwella where the army was utterly routed by superior British firepower under the command of Captain Pollock, forcing them back into the mountains.

The second Governor, Thomas Maitland (1805-1811) became prejudiced against the Malays, treating them as scapegoats for the defeat of the British. His attempts to abolish the Malay Regiment failed due to resistance from the community and the military officials. Nonetheless, he forcibly repatriated more than 300 Malay royal exiles and their families to their original homes, as they were a pecuniary burden on the Government.

In 1805 the 3rd Ceylon Regiment “Baillies” was formed under the command of Colonel Charles Baillie and was disbanded in 1817.

In 1807, the Ceylon Malay Regiment was transferred to the 1st Ceylon Regiment and in 1812, after the British conquest of Java; recruitment was extended to the Javanese.

Malay Girl

In 1810 the King removed the powerful Pilima Talauve from the position of Chief Minister (1st Adigar). The next year Pilima Talauve rebelled and on his capture in 1812, was beheaded for a conspiracy against the Kandyan King and he was succeeded by Ehelapola as First Adigar or Chief Minister.

The next Governor, Robert Brownrigg (1812-1818), having an eye on annexing the last Sinhalese Kingdom of Kandy, boosted the number of Malay settlers. In 1813, his agent Captain de Bussche visited Lieutenant Governor Stamford Raffles in Java requesting help to enlist Javanese soldiers. A reluctant Lieutenant Governor Raffles argued that “the Javanese were needed more for agricultural pursuits than for becoming soldiers”. Yet, he contacted his friend the Raja of Madura. As a result 412 fine soldiers- accompanied by 214 women and 208 children, mostly Sumananpers from the island of Madura left for Ceylon from the Javanese port of Surabaya.

In June 1814, the 1st Ceylon Regiment was converted to light infantry with a rifle company. During the same year Ehalapola, ex-Chief Minister rebelled against the Kandyan King and sought refuge at Colombo. In May, the King had Ehelapola’s wife and four children barbarously butchered in Kandy. Molligoda was appointed Adigar.

In 1815, the men of the 73rd Regiment accompanied by their women and children were returned from Van Diemen’s Land for a seven year tour of duty in Ceylon. Initially this involved normal garrison duties, but in 1815 the regiment was called upon to play an important role in the final overthrow of the Kingdom of Kandy.

In 1815, as the Kandyan King had become notoriously paranoid and engaged in cruel acts against his own people, his discontented Malay subjects decided to turn against him and he lost their support. The construction of the Kandy Lake in 1807 by the King, despite its beauty was a deeply unpopular project as it served no practical purpose as there were no paddy fields that required irrigation and was purely ornamental.

Kandy Lake

War was declared against the King of Kandy and hostilities began on 10th January 1815. British troops entered Kandyan territory on 14th February and the King of Kandy was taken prisoner in a cave near the Medamahanuwara Gap and conveyed to Kandy by Ekneligoda Dissawa and Lieut-Colonel Hook on 18th February. Whereas the British in 1805 had been forced to contend with largely hostile native nobility, in the second Kandyan War of 1815, it was this same nobility who essentially invited the British into Kandy and supported their overthrow of Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe. The Convention for establishing British Government in the Kandyan Province concluded on 2nd March.

The centuries (2,357 years) old Kandyan Monarchic rule ended with Sri Vikrama Rajasinghe and the British became masters of the whole of Ceylon.

Queen's Bathing Pavilion on Kandy Lake

On 24th January 1816, the King of Kandy and his family were sent into exile to Madras, in India and the Government of the Colony was administered by a Governor appointed by the Colonial Secretary, assisted by a Council composed entirely of European civil and military servants who from their tenure of office were totally subservient to the will of the Governor.

More Malays were encouraged to immigrate to Ceylon with their families and paid bounty money. Aristocratic families were especially welcomed, enjoying higher ranks in service depending on the number of followers they brought along. A further batch of 228 Javanese from Semarang and Gresik off the northern coast of Java arrived in 1816.

Unfortunately, discontent with the Brirtish gradually germinated in the minds of the Kandyan Nobility.

Kandyan Nobility and servants

Governor Sir Robert Browrigg reneged on the promise of raising Ehelepola Maha Nilame to the vacant throne of Kandy. Governor Brownrigg also betrayed the terms of the Kandyan Convention, particularly in relation to Buddhism. The natives wanted a King to whom they could prostrate and depend on royal patronage in their religious and social undertakings, not a king thousand miles away in England, ruling through delegated authority of the Ceylon Regiment, whose recruitment was largely restricted to Malays, Indian Sepoys, and African Kaffirs, while the British and Burghers were appointed as officers.

From time to time the inhabitants would query the British on when they hoped to return to the Maritime Provinces. They said “You have now deposed the King and nothing more is required – you may leave us”.

Two major events then caused a revolt among the populace. The first occurred sometime in June 1816, when Madugalle Uda Gabada Nilame, without the knowledge of the British Resident in Kandy, John D’Oyly, secretly proposed to the High Priest about the removal of the Sacred Tooth Relic from Kandy. The second took place in September 1816, when he publicly sent offerings and prayers to the deities at Bintenne and Kataragama, for the downfall of the rulers and the re-establishment of the King. The British considered these actions as amounting to high treason.

Temple of the Sacred Tooth - Kandy

On the charges being proven by a Court comprising both British Officers and Kandyan Chiefs, Madugalle was dismissed from office and dispatched to Colombo under close arrest without being given the opportunity to say farewell to his family. His residence was burnt on the Governor’s orders and his other possessions were confiscated and sold.

Another event was the appointment of Haji Mohandiram, a Moorman of Wallasse, as Chief of the Transport (Madigey) Department, a position usually held by a group of Kandyan families. There were other reasons as well. The aristocracy and the Buddhist priests were accustomed to receiving respect from persons who interacted with them. However, during British rule a common soldier used to pass by a Kandyan Chief giving hardly any attention as he would any other person. They treated people of all levels alike. Such actions, though committed unconsciously, offended the Kandyan Chiefs and priests.

In 1817, Haji Mohandiram was captured by Wilbawe a former priest when he was sent by Sylvester Wilson, the Government Agent at Badulla to investigate an uprising in the Uva Wellasse region and put to death.

Statute of Keppetipola

On hearing of the fate of Haji Mohandiram, Sylvester Wilson, on 16th October 1817, with an armed escort of twenty four Malay and Javanese soldiers under the command of Lieu-Newman set off to investigate. They were attacked by some hundred armed rebels and Wilson was killed. His head was decapitated o the orders of Wilbawe and mounted on a stake. A proclamation from the Pretender Wilbawe was suspended from a tree, announcing himself as the King and enjoining his subjects to put to death every white man.

The British Resident in Kandy, John D’Oyly, thoroughly alarmed by this tragedy, dispatched Keppetipola Dissawe, the Warrior Dissawe of Uva, to Badulla with instructions to crush the rebels and restore law and order in his district. After meeting with the rebels, Keppetipola and his five hundred men joined the rebels and returned all his arms and ammunition to the British. The defection of this influential and highly placed aristocrat, connected to all the leading families in the kingdom, had a profound effect on the British and Kandyan Chiefs and the people.

Governor Brownrigg who was on circuit in Trincomalee, received the bad news and immediately hastened to Kandy where he set up a field-headquarters and arranged a strong military action. In the meantime, Wilbawe was crowned king with due pomp and ceremony, a Palace was built in Diyabeteme Wela. Keppetipola was appointed as first Adigar, as well as other officials were also appointed and then told to make war against the British under the leadership of the respective chiefs.

The Kandyans, acknowledging British superiority in arms and firepower, resorted to a guerrilla war and constantly harrased British patrols and supply columns transversing narrow jungle paths. Gradually, the rebellion began spilling into other provinces and more and more chiefs threw in their lot with Keppetipola. Only four Kandyan chiefs did not support the rebellion. Some rebellious Chief’s were captured and Ehelapola was banished to Mauritius.

British Officer and Bugler

Governor Brownrigg issued a Proclamation on 1 January 1818 that named seventeen persons; including Keppetipola as being engaged in promoting rebellion and war against His Majesties Forces and that they were “Rebels, Outlaws and Enemies of the British.” Their lands and properties were to be confiscated by the Crown. But the indigenous people saw them as freedom fighters waging war to eject the British colonials who had subjugated their land. Marshall Law was proclaimed on 21st February in the Kandyan Provinces and Governor Brownrigg requested the British Governor of Madras for reinforcements, which the Madras government dispatched in the form of two battalions; one European infantry and the other Sepoys of the Madras Native Infantry. These soldiers disembarked in Trincomalee and marched to Badulla.

Together with the British army in Ceylon, comprised of Europeans, Javanese, Malay and African troops they gained the upper hand whilst the rebel leaders showed signs of wavering. The men of the 73rd Regiment were caught up in this brutal war of attrition and atrocity in the Southern Highlands of Uva and the death toll within the regiment, mainly from tropical diseases escalated very rapidly and many of those men who had served in Australia were buried in Ceylon – except for a lucky few who returned to Australia later as pensioners and /or free settlers.

The 19th Regiment was also involved in the Kandyan wars, including the massacre of 1803 and during 24 years in Ceylon the regiment lost 50 officers and 1,498 men from a range of causes.

Governor Brownrigg promised leniency if the rebels surrendered before a deadline of 20 September 1818. Food shortages caused by the rice fields not being cultivated for several seasons and the systematic burning of property resulted in the gradual surrender of rebel chiefs and their men to take advantage of a pardon granted by the Governor. Keppetipola fled to Anuradhapura, but was captured by Colonel Fraser.

The Sacred Tooth Relic that was with Madugalle also fell into the hands of the British in the jungles of Elahera. Death sentences were passed on both Keppetipola and Madugalle and they were executed by decapitation. Thus ended the Uva Rebellion of 1817- 1818.

Wilbawe escaped into the jungles and lived with the Veddahs until his capture in 1830, 12 years after the rebellion and released with out punishment because of the time lapse.

In 1818, the 1st Ceylon Regiment (Light Infantry) was formed and in 1820 converted to rifle corps; recruitment was opened to sons of former African slaves of 3rd Ceylon Regiment and the 4th Regiment.

Models of Ceylon Malay Rifle Regiment

In 1822, the Ceylon Regiment (Rifleman) was formed and on 25 June 1827 became the Ceylon Rifle Regiment. During the period of its existence the uniform was made up of green facings: black headdress: shako (Malay and African coys), turban (Sinhalese coys).

That same year, the Bridge of Boats near Colombo was completed.

On 1 April 1826, William Rowlands joined the Ceylon Regiment (Riflemen) as a Bugler. Three weeks prior to his enlistment, William Rowlands married Maria Lawrence, whose family were descendants of the Portuguese and Dutch, on 6th March 1826, in St Paul’s Church, Pettah, Colombo.

The entry in the Register of marriages – Register No: 11, 1824 to 1827 (Bound Volume) shows that they were married by Licence by A.Armour; the Witnesses were D.Humphreys (one of the survivors of the 1803 Kandyan War) and Petronella Humphreys.

On 15th March 1827 in St Paul’s Pettah, William and Maria’s first child, a son, John Henry Rowlands was baptized.

The regiment was then transferred to Kandy. It was during this period with the Ceylon Rifle Regiment, that Private (No.1113) William Rowlands came to know Lt-Col Henry.C.Bird who was in command of the 16th Regiment of Foot “Bedfordshire” that was formed in 1819. Colonel Henry Bird was also the Commandant of Kandy. On his death in 1829, Lt-Col Bird’s son – Capt H.C.Byrde, who had reverted to the original spelling of the family name, arrived in Ceylon and became commander of the Ceylon Rifle Regiment that had been formed in 1826. The friendship with the father continued with his son.

In 1832 William and Maria’s second child, a son, Richard William Rowlands was born in Kandy. An year later when they were in Colombo he was baptized.

The Register of Baptisms at the Church of St Paul, Colombo – Register No: 06/B-05, Entry No: 281 indicates that on 13th October 1833, he was baptised in Colombo.
Date of Birth = 19th September 1832.
Father’s Name = Bugler William Rowlands.
Mother’s Name = Maria.
Who were married at Colombo March 1826.
Officiating Clergy = J.Horsford.
Sponsors = 1. John Wilhelmus don
2. Bugler James Eaton
3. Mary Fonsago.

British Wedding Party in Ceylon

A third son, Charles Benjamin Rowlands was baptized on 28th September 1840, in Kandy.

C.B.Rowlands became an Apothecary or Chemist. He married Grace Pauline Shaw on 27th September 1873 in Kandy, the name of their eldest son being Reginald Charles Waldemare Rowlands; nicknamed ‘Waldy’ was born on 29 September 1874.

The other children were:-
Estella Grace Alison Rowlands, born 17 November 1875,
May Jemina Gwendoline Rowlands, born 7 January 1877,
Frances Clarissa Millicent Rowlands, born 13 June 1878,
Oswald Charles Gordon Rowlands, born 22 January 1881,
Charles Bertram Rowlands, born 14 March 1882,
Una Florence Pearl Rowlands, born 14 January 1885,
Charles Benjamin Rowlands, born 29 September 1887,
Allen Charles Rowlands, born 1889.

The advertisement section of the Ferguson’s Directory shows the following products that would have been imported from England and sold in the Kandy Dispensary of C.B.Rowlands.
Rowlands’ Magassar Oil – elegant, fragrant, growth restoring, preserving and beautifying human hair.

Rowlands’ Kalydor – for improving and beautifying the skin and complexion.
Rowlands’ Odonto – a dentrifice – whitens the teeth, strengthens gums and imparts freshness of breath.

The friendship between William Rowlands and Capt Byrde continued until William was discharged from the regiment on 31 July 1850 at the age of 48 having survived the Kandyan wars.

The British capture of the Kingdom of Kandy marked not only the end of the 400 year old Kingdom of Kandy, but also of all native political independence. Kandy, as a result of its geographical and political isolation had developed unique cultural and social structures that were now subject to the intense pressures of subjugation and underwent immense upheaval and change.

The opportunity for the Colony of Ceylon to become an economically independent entity now presented the Government of Ceylon with the ability to commence a plantation economy similar to those started in the other British Colony’s of India, the West Indies, Africa and the Americas.

Note: - Colombo Cemetery - Grave No. IM/666 – Purchased by C.B.Rowlands (Charles Benjamin.Jnr or his brother Charles Bertram ). This grave is maintained by one R.H.Rowlands. Mr R.C.W. (Reginald Charles Waldemar Rowlands is buried in this grave. Born 29th September 1874, Died age 69 (1943).

Chapter 4 1825 - Pioneers of Coffee in Ceylon

2008-11-18T21:42:00.000-08:00

The origin of the coffee plant in Ceylon has been traced to the coffee trees growing in a natural state in the Royal Palace Gardens at Hanguranketa, in the Kandy district and were said to have been brought over by Arabians for the purpose of growing a sweet-smelling flower for the Buddhist temple. The Dutch began the cultivation of coffee in the low-country as early as 1740, but were never able to export more than 1,000 cwt. Sir Edward Barnes who was Governor for two periods – from 1820 to 1822 and again from 1824 to 1831 – showed an intense interest in the agricultural development of the Colony and to this end commenced and completed the great central road into the hill country.

In order to encourage military and civil officers of the administration and new settlers to take up land, 1825 Sir Edward Barnes established his own plantation at Ganoruwa, adjoining the newly opened botanical Gardens in Peradeniya. The example of Sir Edward Barnes bore fruit and soon Kandy, the ancient Capital of the mountain kingdom which for so long had defied the British invader, became the centre of activity for the opening up of new plantations.

Coffee Blossoms

The moment was rendered propitious by a concurrence of favourable circumstances; the use of coffee had been largely increased in the United Kingdom by the remission of one-half the import duty in 1825 – a measure under the impetus of which the consumption nearly doubled itself within three years and went on augmenting until it outstripped the powers of production in the West Indies and raised the value of coffee to such a pitch that the produce of India and Ceylon came into rapid demand at highly remunerative prices. Coupled with these fiscal facilities another important change was in progress, which vastly enlarged the demand for coffee, not only in the United Kingdom, but over a great part of Western Europe; and especially in Belgium and France; - this was the annually diminishing consumption of wine, concurrently with the increase in consumption of coffee and tea. In England, coffee had come to be a necessary of life for the poor as well as a luxury to the opulent classes.

Lt Col Henry.C. Bird who arrived in Ceylon in 1823 and was the Military Commandant of the Kandy District commenced coffee planting in the Kandy district and in 1824 opened a coffee plantation in Sinnapitiya, near a town named Gampola, at an elevation of 1,600 feet.

The estate was opened and run by his brother George Bird who has also been a Cavalry Officer and came out to Ceylon to take up Planting, as Lt-Col H.C.Bird was not able to work an Estate himself. William Northway Senior was appointed Superintendent at Gangaroowa.

British civilians and military officials resident in Kandy provided initial Capital for coffee cultivation and behaved more like coffee planters than Government employees. The new landowners were mainly public servants stationed in Colombo, had absolutely no knowledge of planting, so were obliged to employ outsiders who had some background knowledge of agriculture, or who at least possessed a spirit of adventure necessary to open up the tracts of virgin jungle that had come into their possession.

Operations at Sinnapitiya became so paralyzed after the death of Lt-Col Henry Bird from Cholera in 1829 that Mr George Bird was induced to abandon the property in 1833 and remove to Kondasally and subsequently to Imboolpitiya in Oudabulatgamma.

George Bird

Obituary notice in gentleman’s magazine volume 146

Lieut.-colonel Bird.

3rd April 1829, At Colombo, in Ceylon, Lieut.-Col. Henry Bird, of his Majesty's Ceylon regiment. He entered the army as Ensign in the 29th foot; was promoted Lieut, in the 94th in 1794, and afterwards Captain in the 112th; and was on the half-pay from the reduction of the last-named regiment in Aug. 1795 till Feb. 1797, when he was required to serve in the Supplemental Militia, and continued therein till Jan. 1800. He was appointed Captain in the 5th foot in 1803, and brevet Major Jan. 1, 1805, in which year he served in the expedition to Hanover. In 1806 he went to South America, and was present at the storming of Buenos Aires; in 1807 to Portugal, and was in the battles of Rnleia and Vimiera. In 1809 be served under Sir John Moore in Spain ; in the same year in the expedition to Walcheren; and was in the actions of the 1st and 7th of August, and at the siege of Flushing. He was promoted to be brevet Lieut.-Colonel Jan. 1, 1812; Major 5th foot 1813, and 7th foot 1816; and, having been some time on the half-pay of the latter reg. was appointed Major of the 16th foot in 1822, and subsequently Lieut.-Colonel. He has left a widow - Frances Maria (nee De Fer), born 1784 in France, died 6th January 1869, Goytrey, Monmouth and family.

Kabristan Archives in “Graveyards in Ceylon – Kandy Region Vol IV” on page 85 states that “GEORGE SAMUEL BIRD, coffee planting pioneer, died March 1857, aged 67. His wife CHARLOTTE CARPENTER died at Kundesale on 26 June 1842, aged 35. She was the daughter of Lieut-Colonel Lionel Hook, Ceylon Rifles and was born at Colombo on 22 March 1806.

In 1834 Captain Henry.C.Byrde, Lt-Col Henry Bird’s son who resorted to the original spelling of the family name, came to Ceylon on the sailing ship “Symmetry” having been transferred to the Ceylon Rifle Regiment, joined his uncle George Bird and established Black Forest Estate, in Pussellawa at an elevation of 3,000 feet and started planting coffee. Black Forest was so named from the dark foliage of the forest, where the Doon trees were growing to a height of 100 feet before branching. It was the success of the first clearing on Black Forest that led to the ultimate rush for land to grow coffee.

One night in early 1850 at the Mess Hall, Captain Byrde gave a talk to the British soldiers and their families about his experience in establishing this estate, the trials and tribulations of the harvest and getting the coffee to Colombo, with a view to encouraging more soldiers to take up coffee planting.

William Rowlands who was to leave the army in July of that year was present with his three sons, 23 year old John Henry, 18 year old, Richard William and 10 year old Charles Benjamin.

Captain Henry.C.Byrde

The talk would have included the following; “To start clearing the jungle work gangs of low country Sinhalese axe men were organized to move out into the trackless forest which clothed the mountains to axe the trees and transform the land. The huge felled trees were then burned. Later, an army of Tamil coolies cut square holes in the mountainous terrain, ready for coffee bush planting. Tree stumps were left to rot and also prevent soil erosion. The field resembled a gigantic cemetery with hundreds of head stones.

Following the advice of Mr Robert Boyd Tyler who arrived in Ceylon in 1827, after having gained some experience in coffee-planting in Jamaica picked up mainly in a book written by Mr Laborie, a Planter of St Domingo, there was a complete change in the method of growing and curing coffee. Coffee was now to be grown on one stem only; the plants were to be raised from seed and the trees to be topped at a certain height. The coffee fruit was to be put through a “Grater Mill”. Barbeques were to be laid down for drying the parchment and a “Peeling Mill” used for grinding the coffee when dry. The introduction of his method of planting and curing created a complete revolution in the industry, coffee thus cured being called “Plantation Coffee’ and the remainder were termed “Native Coffee”.

Clearing Jungle for Coffee Plantation

The first Planter’s house was a 12 foot by 6 foot log hut with mud to keep out the weather, a thatched roof with a hammock for a bed and a table and chair. The Planter’s clothes consisted of a wicker helmet covered with a long padded white cloth that hung down his back. A shooting jacket and trousers of checked country cloth, immense leech gaiters fitting inside canvas boots and a Chinese paper umbrella. He rode a horse to inspect the plantation.

Early Planter’s House
The Planter’s life was both solitary and very monotonous with no railways and very few roads. On a Saturday he treaded his way through the forest on horse back to meet with his fellow planters. The Saturday night get-to-gether was a riotous event where they let their hair down. The small bungalow in which the protracted revels were held ended up with a mountain of piled up empty bottles.

When the plants matured, in March, under the influence of showers, the buds burst into bloom with the entire estate profusely decorated with snowy garlands and the air heavy with their perfume against a backdrop of dark luxuriant bushes.

The factory was built near a stream so that water troughs could be used to transport beans and then pulp the fruit before they were fermented and dried in the sun.

Crops came in but once a year, about November, December or January. The berry was pulped on the estate, and the parchment coffee was dried in barbeques and sent to Colombo. This in itself was no easy matter.

Transport by Bullock Cart

The coffee was then transported in two bushel bags on men’s heads to bullock wagons and taken over the cart roads by contractors. The honesty of these men was less than adequate and many a load never reached Colombo. The multiplication of taverns along the roads also made the task of transporting coffee a hazardous business.

Sir Graeme.H.D.Elphinstone held sway at one time at Kotmale, where Capt.C.W.Forbes on Kadienlena and Capt.Payne Gallwey on Kataboola. Kadienlena was the first estate owned by Sir James H.D.Elphinstone. West hall was named after the property of that name in Garioch County, and later he was the owner of Logie Estate, named after his place in the same locality. Sir Graeme Elphinstone was a great planter, commonly called “Logie”.

When in charge of Logie Estate, to enable him to check the cart men, who were usually regarded as rogues in their way of overcharging and also stealing and mixing coffee en route to Colombo, “Logie” made a whole trip himself as a cart man, driving the bullock cart from Kotmale to Colombo via Kelani Valley, living much as the cart men did, and at a famous dinner given in honour of Sir James Elphinstone when he revisited Ceylon, challenged Sir James to compete with him in the art of driving a double-bullock cart.

Sorting Coffee in Colombo

Coffee was not shipped as parchment, but on arrival in Colombo, the parchment was milled in huge circular stone mills, even the silver skin being removed in the process and the coffee was thoroughly dried for shipment. Vast drying grounds were laid to dry the coffee bean and then the massive machines would remove the parchment envelope. The finished article was then packed in barrels, giving ample work for the Sinhalese who became expert artisans. Great mills such as Bloominghall Mill, The United Channel Island Stores and the New Banff Establishment were built to cater for the ever increasing amount of coffee being produced in the valleys of Dumbara, Ambegamuwa, Kotemale and Pussellawa.

Drying Coffee in Colombo

Shipping was intermittent, and the larger agency firms would often charter all the space of a sailing vessel to carry the produce consigned to them for shipment to London.

Delivery in London would take a further six months.

The motivation given by Sir Edward Barnes to encourage the cultivation of coffee could not have been better timed. As mentioned earlier, this moment was rendered auspicious by a concurrence of a series of favourable circumstances. This gave the industry a head start over others. The duty relief granted by the state in 1825 on coffee imports to Britain helped almost double the consumption of coffee in the country.

Packing Coffee in Colombo

Accordingly, coffee consumption in Western Europe began to rise. It became a necessity of life for the poor and a luxury for the affluent class. Before the first crop of coffee could be shipped to the U.K. Ceylon’s formidable rivals Jamaica, Dominica and Guinea were faced with internal discord, due to the conduct of the slaves just prior to their emancipation. Production from these countries steadily declined at a time when Ceylon was about to launch on a new career.

Ceylon almost overnight was transformed from a lethargic military cantonment into a resourceful British Colony.

Governor Barnes continued to encourage coffee growers. In addition to constructing a network of roads he pioneered a series of legislative reforms to assist the growth of the industry.

Consumption of coffee in Britain, detailed below:-
1824 7,993,040 lbs
1825 10,766,112 lbs
1826 12,724,139 lbs
1827 14,974,373 lbs 16,008 cwt
1828 7,072 cwt
1829 20,033 cwt
1830 16,900 cwt

Richard was all ears and it was in the spirit of challenging the unknown that Richard William Rowlands, seeking adventure and some sort of fulfillment decided that he would apply for a job on a plantation, with some idea of the new life he was going to lead. At the end of the talk, he asked his father to speak to Captain Byrde about finding him a place as a trainee Superintendent, which his father said he would do, after a family discussion. Richard spoke to his father and mother about becoming a coffee planter. The parents are most concerned about his welfare and agreed to speak to Captain Byrde at great length about the work he would be involved in and the dangers that he would face. Captain Byrde tells them that he had met lads as young as 16 who had started work on plantations and with good guidance and support had become coffee planters. He said that Richard would be working with friends of his and that they would teach Richard all that was required. Richard’s mother has some reservations, but would not stand in the way as he would be contracted to a reputable person and Capt Byrde had promised his father that he would looked after.

Sailing Ships in Colombo Harbour

Richard also talked to his friends about his decision and that he is looking forward to signing his contract. He spoke about the tasks involved in opening up virtually inaccessible dense jungle to expand the estate, preparing the mountain side for coffee plants, the various types of manure used to fertilize the crop and the process of cultivation and preparation of the coffee beans for shipment.

It was not until 1854, following the financial crisis of 1852, that Richard received a letter asking him to see Capt Byrde in Kandy, about a position on Delta Estate in Pussellawa, owned by his good friend Mrs.Cavendish and managed by a another of his good friend’s Mr William Sabondiere.

The Letter of Engagement that Richard signed would have been similar to that signed by James Taylor in 1851, and would have read:-

Gentlemen,
I hereby engage myself to Mrs G.H.Cavendish of Delta Estate, Pussellawa, Ceylon, to a space of two years to act in the capacity of Asst.Superintendent, and to make myself generally useful, and to obey orders of those set over me at a salary of One hundred pounds per annum, to commence from the time of my arrival on the estate, and to have deducted from my salary the amount of money advanced me for freight.

I am Gentlemen,
Your Obedient Servant,
Richard William Rowlands.”

An entry in the Baptism Register at Holy Trinity Church, Pussellawa indicates that George Bird (son of George Samuel Bird) married Eliza at St Andrews Church, Gampola on 27 August 1862 and a son Charles Henry George Bird was born on 4 December 1867 and Baptised on 23 December 1867 at “Wannendon”. The God-parents being, Charles Shelton Agar, Henry Charles Byrde, Maria Hayes and Louisa McPherson.

In the Kabristan Archives “Graveyards in Ceylon – Kandy region Vol IV” on page 40 the following entry reads:-

Iin the Kandy Cemetery a burial plot was purchased by Revd. E.A.Copleston on 25th February 1902 for JONATHAN BIRD and

On page 42 that a burial plot was purchased by Walter James Agar on 29th May 1913 for ELIZA.W.BIRD (wife of GEORGE BIRD).

Henry Charles Byrde married on 5th June 1837, Rebecca Mais, born 10th December 1809, Bristol and died 23rd December 1893, Pontypool. Captain Henry Charles Byrde, died 15th October 1895.

The London Gazette of 11 May 1875 states that Henry Charles Byrde Esq., was appointed Honorary Colonel 2nd Administrative Battalion Monmouthshire Rifle Volunteers on 12th May 1875.

Children of Captain Henry Charles and Rebecca Byrde:-

Captain Henry Byrde, born 3rd December 1837 - Ceylon
Charles Byrde, born 17th January 1839 - Ceylon
Rev: Frederick Louis Byrde, born 28th January 1843 - Kandy, Ceylon
Rev: Richard Augustus Byrde, born 4th March 1844, - Kandy Ceylon
Francis William Byrde, born 20th June 1846, - Kandy Ceylon
Evan Maberly Durand Byrde, born 22nd June 1848 – Guerney, Chanel Isles
Anne Elizabeth Byrde, born 1853 – Kandy Ceylon.

Chapter 10 - A Visit to Colombo

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Richard’s father William Rowlands who had left the army in 1850, traveled to Trincomalee to see some of his friends from his army days. While he was there, he took ill and died within the week. The Register of Burials at the Church of St Stephens, Trincomalee, Register No: 20-C-922/80-153 Entry No: 922/9210 shows that William Rowlands died on 19th December 1858 at Trincomalee, aged 56 years.

When the family was notified they were devastated and Richard’s employer, Mrs. Cavendish recommended he take a few days off and visit Colombo with William Sabondiere who was going to the city on business. They rode horses to Kandy, where Mrs. Cavendish was there to greet them. They stayed the night at the Queens Hotel in Kandy and took the stage coach to Colombo the next day.

Queens Hotel, Kandy

With the unification of Ceylon in 1815, Sir Edward Barnes as Governor in 1824 gave Ceylon a fresh appearance.

The country was well connected with a network of military roads, bridges were constructed across major rivers and the first mail coach in Asia was started between Colombo and Kandy. These improvements were mapped out from his palatial residence at Mount Lavinia, built at a cost of thirty thousand pounds sterling. That same year, he also built the Pavilion at Kandy.

Up to about the 1840’s, Ceylon was a military dependency with about six infantry regiments with artillery. All maintained by the Imperial Government. Colombo being the Capital enjoyed the advantage of having headquarters of a Lieut-Governor. For security reasons, the entire workforce was stationed within its headquarters.

Governor Barnes’ Residence, Mt Lavinia

In 1858, Colombo seemed a truly busy city, with a dozen sailing ships with 300 to 1,000 tons at anchor, and all operations carried out with the utmost care and attention. Foreign visitors to the city were few.

There was only one hotel worth mentioning, but the mercantile hospitality made up for all the deficiencies and all visitors to the island were welcomed as dear friends from the homeland.

In the meantime, William Sabondiere and Richard Rowlands visited Colombo to see the loading of coffee at the Colombo Harbour and also see the horse races at the Galle Face. They stopped at the Galle Face Races where they caught site of carriages flying hither and thither on Galle Face Green and the crowd that had come to witness the events of the day.

Horse Races at Galle Face

After the spectacle of horse racing at Galle Face they were glad to get away from the noisy crowds and made their way back to the Fort. After a well earned cup of tea at the Galle Face Hotel, they took a stroll through the Fort to Pettah, but Richard not being used to the heat and stench of Colombo, they retraced their steps to their Hotel.

They then decided to hire a carriage to do a little more sight seeing. They met a Portuguese on the street and asked him whether he knew where to hire a carriage. “Come this way please” he said and they followed him back to Pettah, where opposite a very disreputable looking Wrights Shop they saw a shop with about a dozen readymade coffins and right above them a sign saying “Conveyance for Hire”. Richard would experience many similar situations in the future as he came to know more about life in Ceylon. They thanked the rascal and made their way back to the Fort to find a more reputable person who had a carriage for hire. They decided that a Rickshaw journey would be more appropriate to see the rest of Colombo. Street in Pettah.

Street in Pettah

Once they found a rickshaw for hire and noted the sign that indicated the rates for Rickshaws, which read:-

By Day Extra by Night
Rupees – Cents Rupees – Cents
Not exceeding ten minutes 0 10 0 5
Each hour 0 25 0 5
Each hour 0 50 0 10
For each subsequent half hour 0 10 0 5

They decided to hire two rickshaws as they felt that they both could not fit into one, for an hour and made their way around Colombo. Just out side the Fort and from Turret Road eastwards the land was covered with cinnamon, until in a bid to beautify the city the Government had laid out a park and flower gardens and on the surrounding land was built elegant colonial houses. This area would in time become known as Cinnamon Gardens and there the de Soysa family would build their Mansion “Alfred House”.

Galle Face Hotel in the 1860’s

Richard was not to know, that soon he would make friends with one of the richest plantation owners in Ceylon at that time and would be dining with royalty at their mansion in Cinnamon Gardens in the not too distant future.

During their visit they also visited the British Garrison stationed in Colombo and the new buildings constructed on Slave Island. The buildings were constructed to plans drawn up by the Government Architect and were of a high quality and designed for the tropics.

The first mail coach in all Asia was inaugurated on 1st February 1832 and operated between Colombo and Kandy until July 1867. It was this mail coach that they boarded for Kandy at 4.00a.m, on the only cart road from Colombo to Kandy via Kaduganawa.

Rifle Mess on Slave Island in 1860

The morning gun would fire at 5a.m. for the gates of the Colombo Fort to be opened for the coach to leave.

They would then go to Pussellawa on horse back, via the cart road from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya. Richard found that the cart road from Colombo to Kandy was no more than a clearing through the forest that served both as a military and commercial road. The fare from Colombo to Kandy was Two Pounds Sterling for an inside seat.

Rickshaws in Colombo

The coach was drawn with two horses and had accommodation for four passengers beside the driver. Instructions issued to the driver insisted that the coach should never be driven at a speed exceeding six mile per hour. One hour was allowed for a bath and breakfast at the Royal Hotel, Mahahena. The journey from Colombo took 14 hours.

Miles are passed and still the country is thickly populated – paddy cultivation in all the flats and hollows and even the sides of the hills were carefully terraced out in a laborious system of agriculture. Sixty miles are passed; the top of the Kaduganawa Pass is reached, eighteen hundred feet above sea level, the road walled with jungle on either side.

The Kandy Road was a toll road. Also, that the road led through robber infested country and was consequently never safe. They were fortunate not to be accosted by “Sardiel”, Ceylon’s Robin Hood or any other bands of highwaymen, not to mention rogue elephants and other savage animals. The journey took them to Gampaha where there was a Rest House established for travelers for a short break.

Colombo-Kandy Coach

Then to Kegalla, where a similar establishment was available for lunch and finally to Peradeniya via the Kaduganawa Pass.

William Sabondiere told Richard the construction of the Colombo to Kandy road was steeped in legend. There was ancient prophecy amongst Kandyans that whoever pieced the rock on the final ascent to the pass and made a road from the plains would receive the Kandyan Kingdom as a reward.

The Portuguese had failed, as did the Dutch. The prophecy was finally fulfilled by the British, who broke through the rock in 1823.

The other landmark that they crossed was the bridge built at Peradeniya in 1831 spanning the Mahaveli Ganga, the fourth longest in the country. The bridge was constructed entirely of satinwood dovetailed together without the single nail or bolt. This huge bridge was supported by stone buttresses set into foundations on each side of the river.

Road through Kaduganawa Rock

Chapter 5 - Crisis, Recovery and Prosperity.

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Ceylon led the crusade by shifting the supply line of this much-wanted beverage from the Western to the Eastern hemisphere and from thereon, exports began to rise as the following figures indicate.

Year From West Indies From Ceylon

1827 29,419,598 lbs 1,792,448 lbs
1837 15,557,888 lbs 6,756,848 lbs
1847 5, 259,449 lbs 19,475,904 lbs
1857 4,054,028 lbs 67,453,680 lbs

The frenzied rush to open up coffee plantations commenced thereafter. The mountain rangers on all sides of Kandy in the Dumbara, Ambagamuwa, Kotmale and Pussellawa soon became covered with coffee plantations. Once the fertile lands in these areas were exhausted, they climbed upwards to the steep hills of Nuwara Eliya and then to the sprawling grasslands of Badulla. The pathless jungle that the pioneers opened up became before long flourishing coffee gardens. The tracks they created were converted into highways and the log huts they lived in were in time replaced with beautiful bungalows.

In 1845, 294,526 acres had been sold to Ceylonese and Europeans for coffee plantations. These lands, for centuries undisturbed except by the trumpeting of elephants, the cough of leopards and the bark of the deer, were soon converted into fields of coffee.

Pioneer Coffee Plantations in Kandy District

Sir Emerson Tennant has compared this period of land development in Ceylon with the gold rushes in Australia and California – with the difference that the enthusiasts in Ceylon, instead of thronging to disinter, were hurrying to bury their gold.

There were no banks in Ceylon until 1828 when Mr Jeronis Pieris and Louis Peieris in connection with the de Soysa family established the Bank of Kandy. In the early days of coffee, money was always in demand. Colombo was very far away, taking no less than four days to reach from the hill capital.

The road, too, led through robber infested country and was consequently never safe. Sardiel, Ceylon’s Robin Hood, was only one of the many who made the cart road a danger. Deekirikevage Saradiel was born on 25th March 1835. His gang of robbers were a lawless bunch who waylaid carriages and coaches and robbed people of their valuables. A rocky outcrop named “Utuwankande” was the gang’s hideout and from this point they could see the Kandy road and plotted the ambush of caravans taking goods and people to and from Colombo. In those days, contractors taking goods to Kandy and Colombo had to seek armed escorts to escape the marauding bands of robbers.

Hard Work through the Jungles on the Colombo-Kandy Road in the 1860's

The law caught up with Saradiel in a house in Mawanella when he was betrayed by one of his gang who had become a police informant. On 21st March 1864, Constable Tuan Shaban of the Kandy Police died while capturing Saradiel. He was the first police officer in the country to die in action and every year police heroes are commemorated on this day. Saradiel walked to the gallows on 7th May 1864. Contrary to popular belief, Saradiel who was supposed to be a fearsome-looking, strong man was rather small, being five foot three inches in height. There were other bands of highwaymen, not to mention rogue elephants and other savage animals. The Bank of Kandy therefore became a most useful institution, keeping money in custody till called for and furnishing money on Colombo’s orders, when getting money from Colombo was a very hazardous business.

Mr William Thompson started the first registered Bank in Ceylon that was incorporated by Royal Charter and was subject to the control of a Board in London. The Ceylon Bank that opened in 1841 to finance the rapid expansion of coffee plantations, but was affected by the events of 1845 and this temporarily checked the rapid expansion. The Ceylon Bank ceased payment in 1847 and was taken over by the Western Bank of India, under a new designation and styled “The Oriental Bank Corporation”.

Colombo–Kandy Road in the 1860’s

An ordinance made in 1840 made it virtually impossible for a Kandyan peasant to prove that his land was not truly Crown Land and thus subject to appropriation and resale to coffee interests.

That same year, as the demand for land increased, the development of roads became a prime necessity and the great road-maker of the day was Major Thomas Skinner, C.M.G. A letter he addressed to His Excellency the Governor dated 11th August 1840, quote:

“With all these purchases and applications for land, the demand appears to be just as insatiable as ever, while the fevered cry is ‘where shall we go for land’. In vain I proclaim that there is a choice of between 200,000 and 300,000 acres of the finest forest land in Ceylon within the wilderness of the Peak, possessing in the most eminent degree every requisite of soil and climate. ‘How are we to get at it’, is the natural consequence, and having spent many dreary months in it, and there is not a valley that I have not traversed, nor a feature from the highest point of which I have not attempted to sketch in my reconnaissance; yet I know that many a man might dive into the depth of 500 square miles of unbroken pathless forest from which he would never find his way out”.

He was describing the area of Maskeliya, Dimbula and Dickoya in 1840 and Major Skinner then suggests a five foot pathway from Kotmale to Balangoda, with two rest houses on the way, the cost to be borne by the proceeds of the land sales.

In 1845 British troops repressed a rebellion that broke out among the Kandyans because of new taxes and the alienation of temple lands for coffee plantations. The Ceylon Rifle Regiment took part in putting down this rebellion.

That same year, a disaster overtook the coffee industry in Ceylon, due to a serious financial crisis in England. Panic and consternation overran Ceylon. Estates were abandoned and the seriousness of the situation can be judged on the fact that Naragalla Estate, near Badulla which had cost 10,000 Pounds was sold for 350 Pounds and another that sold in 1843 for 15,000 Pounds was sold in 1847 for 440 Pounds. A reliable report has it that one-tenth of the plantations originally opened were abandoned during this period.

Coffee Estate in the 1850’s

By 1852, about 90% of the speculators lost all. 7% picked up on fragments of their properties, 2% who took the hint of what was coming got off clear and 1% made a fortune. About one tenth of properties were abandoned.

Following the death of Lt-Col Henry Bird in 1829 of Cholera the Sinnapitiya Estate was abandoned and in 1846 sold to Frank Hudson of the firm of Hudson, Chandler, who formed a project for farming it on the ‘English principle’ in conjunction with sugar cultivation. A farmer and his family were brought out from England and gradually the old decaying coffee stumps gave place to guinea grass good enough to maintain a stock of horses and cattle. This venture did not succeed, as the whole Hudson Chandler agency business went bankrupt two years later. In 1848 Lt-Col H.C.Bryde buys back his father’s estate and brings J.C.Williams from Waloya Estate to restart coffee on Sinnapitiya Estate and help him with organizing coolie gangs and buying coffee bushes to re-establish the plantation with coffee bushes.

The revival of business, however, did not take place until 1854, in which year The Chartered Mercantile Bank established itself in Ceylon, when the increased consumption and better prices obtained for coffee in European markets gave a new impetus to the planting enterprise.

Sir Henry Ward appeared on the scene at a peculiarly opportune moment.

The man and the hour arrived together and this able and active Governor was not many months on the Island before the prospects of the Colony and its chief enterprise began to assume an entirely new and vastly more important aspect. During this period after the arrival of Governor Sir Henry Ward single handedly changed the fortunes of the Colony, with the belief that it is with material improvement that all other improvements begin. Roads were repaired, extended and opened on every side and bridges built so that the communication between the coffee growing districts and Colombo, the shipping port was considerably improved.

When the coffee industry took off on its second wave of prosperity with land and capital freely available, the Planters were faced with a labour shortage.

Getting people to work on the plantations was a constant problem that was solved by importing labour from South India.

Richard was starting his life as a Planter at a very exiting time in the history of Ceylon.

Statue of Governor Ward

During this period the Dutch Burghers abandoned the use of the Dutch language and adopted English as their own language. By 1860, the use of Dutch among the Dutch Burghers had disappeared. Burghers were now employed by the British in the Colonial administration as clerks, lawyers, soldiers, physicians, etc and were a privileged class on the island. Creole Portuguese continued to be used amongst the Dutch Burgher families as the colloquial language until the end of the nineteenth century.

Chapter 6 - The Planters Association of Ceylon

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The immediate results of the catastrophe of 1845/47 was a return to financial stability and the labourious rebuilding of an industry all but ruined by ill-luck and senseless speculation. Those planters such as Lt-Col H.C.Bryde who were still in possession of their estate after the crisis had passed and those who joined them in the agricultural development of the Island, set about their task in a sober mood. It soon became evident that some form of an Association was a necessity to the community of Planters whose problems were manifold. The recruitment of labour from the Indian mainland, their transportation to the plantations, the complexities involved in their housing and the maintenance of their health were but a few aspects of the labour question. The matter of communication was of great importance to the Planter since he had to transport produce over very difficult country to the ports of Colombo and Galle. Taxation had to be watched with an expert eye.

Mr George Wall drafted a circular letter proposing the formation of an Association as a result of which 100 coffee planters met on 17th February 1854 in Kandy at an institution bearing the name of “The Boarding House” under the Chairmanship of Captain Keith Jolly, founded the Planters’ Association of Ceylon”.

Large plantations could never have been established without the availability of cheap labour in sufficient quantities. Further, technology had not developed during the initial stages of coffee cultivation, to save on labour. Under these circumstances, coffee cultivation had to be labour intensive and cheap labour was necessary to keep costs low and increase profits. In Ceylon it was labour and not so much as Capital, that determined the establishment of large plantations. All these factors of production were freely available and above all a dependable, well disciplined and a cheap labour force from adjoining India was always at hand.

George Wall

At the commencement of the clearing of the forests in the Central Province, many Kandyan and low country Sinhalese, tempted by the high wages offered by the planters, flocked to these areas for employment. The type of work called for by the ‘White Man” did not suit their ways. They soon returned to their villages to cultivate their paddy fields. Every Sinhalese had an attachment to his village and furthermore he always had a stake in his father’s properties. After the abolition of “rajakiriya” in 1848, they got themselves well established in their own villages and tended their own lands and showed no desire to move out to the fast developing coffee districts.

This was the reason that the British planter was compelled to look at Coolie migration.

The close proximity of a mass of dispossessed people who had little or nothing other than their labour to sell was no doubt the colonial legacy created by the British in their attempt to establish a plantation economy in India. In the process India was transformed into a great labour market, second only to the African continent.

To the poor people of South India, stricken with frequent droughts, the fast developing plantation sector in Ceylon offered them the opportunity to ward off starvation. The serendipity of greener pastures offered in Ceylon was irresistible and with it the availability of cheap labour in sufficient numbers to work the plantations was solved.

The first batch of immigrant labour from South India to work the coffee plantations were imported by Lt-Col Bird (the father of Lt-Col Byrde, the son changed the spelling of his family name after his father’s death) and Governor Barnes in 1828. From the late 1830’s the trickle of Indian labour developed into a stream. Unfortunately, the conditions of the immigrant labour from south India was appalling. Wages were low and irregularly paid and grievances met by force. Despite these hardships Indian labourers flowed in by the thousands each year. One observation made by a person who was fighting the cause of the South Indian worker was that they were better fed, clothed and housed in the line rooms of the plantations, than their fellow villagers in India. The labour forces from India were recruited on a voluntary basis. They came from the lowest segment of society and they did not require any form of coercion to persuade them to travel to plantations in the hill country.

Captain Keith Jolly

The journey to the South coast of India from the interior, carrying with them all their worldly belongings on their heads was no easy task. The journey through the Palk Straits to Ceylon, in a fragile fishing boat that followed, was equally treacherous. Those who died on board were given a watery burial.

After setting foot on Ceylon soil, they had even a more dangerous journey to undertake through the jungle footpaths to their final destination. Drinking water was scarce and the jungle tracks were infested with deadly wild life, snakes, leeches and above all the malaria mosquitoes. The sick and those who could not match the pace of the walk were left behind to be devoured by the jackals that followed the marchers. After many days of walking, they would approach their journeys end. Very high percentage of those who braved the quest for a better life fell by the wayside, due to starvation, illness, fatigue or attack by wild animals.

The primitive accommodation along the way would take the form of a leaky thatched hut, but they probably felt happy and contented, carrying distressing memories of the past, but hopeful of a brighter future.

The early routes via Mannar and the North Road were often referred to as the “Death Road”, due to the number that perished along the way.

In 1844 a Conductor (Field Supervisor) from the Black Forest Estate was sent to Trincomalee to find a suitable Tamil to represent Lt-Col Byrd in South India. He was successful and recruited 14 labourers. The method used by the Kangani was to show money to the lean and hungry South Indian locals and tell them about the ample work available on the estates in Ceylon. Those who accepted were marshaled into large gangs and brought across the coast to Ceylon by boat. They then traveled down the North Road and those who survived reached the estate for which they were bound.

Leopard of Ceylon

As coffee was a seasonal crop, immigrant labour in the early stages was required only during the picking season and on completion of this task, the Tamils would return to their native villages in South India. The return journey to India was even more hazardous as they now carried their savings with them and they had to be on the watch for robbers.

At the inaugural meeting of the Planters’ Association of Ceylon a sub-committee was formed to provide Rest-sheds and water supplies along the North Road.

Mr R B Tytler

On the 13th January 1856, Mr Hugh McClenan of Kelvin Estate Dolosbage, submitted a memorandum to Mr R B Tytler, the then Chairman of the Planters’ Association, drawing attention to the difficulties experienced in obtaining “coolies” from the Coast and pointing out the system of advancing monies to “canganies” was a pernicious one,
resulting in very little recruitment. To Ceylon Planters and the thousands of Indian Immigrant labourers employed on the coffee and later tea plantations in Ceylon, the word “Coast” meant the large area of South India, mainly the Madras Presidency, from which the majority of Indian immigrants originated. He then set down his suggestions for the establishment of the Coast Agency and offered his services to initiate the measure.

It took 48 years for the Coast Agency to be established in 1904, and the basis of the scheme was as suggested by Mr McCleland in 1856. A relevant extract reads as follows:-

“In the first place a proper European well acquainted with the Tamil language and with Estate matters ought to be stationed over on the coast at the Shipping Port Vethella Mandagam with a proper staff under him to collect men and when necessary to ship them to other Ports. He should be under the control of the Planters’ Association to which Body he should be held responsible for all sums of money given to him as advances for coolies. No Estates ought to make advances, but through him. Managers should, as soon after the crop as possible, forward to the Planters’ Association a memo stating the number of men required for the ensuing season and a cheque fore the amount fixed by that Body as proper advances.

No Coolies or Canganies should be employed by any Estate unless they produce a printed pass signed by the Agent on the Coast or his assistants stating the number of men, women and boys in each gang, the amount advanced to each individual and the name of the Estate they were sent over for. The Cangany should be made satisfactorily to account for any party missing.

“Coolies coming via Colombo, if without passes from the Agent on the Coast should be questioned by either the Customs or Police authorities and provided with passes and any coolies entering the Central Province without such passes ought to be taken up as runaways. This should put a stop to the “crimping system” which is a disgrace to Coffee Planters.

Madras Presidency in India

The men to be delivered at Talli Mannar by the Agent on a given day to a proper person sent from the Estate or Estates to take charge of them and this person’s receipt for the men to be held by the Agent as a sufficient discharge of his duties. The number of men required to each gang should be fixed by the Planters’ Association and a table of uniform wages to be given to Canganies and men in each Planting district should be drawn up by that Body so as to enable the Agent to make proper arrangements with the men on the Coast.

In forwarding the order for men, the manager ought to give a list of the Canganies returning to their country, the name of the place he generally gets his labour from and whether he wants these men next season or not, so that the Agent may be able to send the same men to the same estates year after year, unless specially requested to send new men. That the Canganies may all appear before the Agent on their return to their country, the first year a moiety of their salary should be handed to the Agent to be paid to them on the Coast on production of an order for it. This is to enable the Agent to form a register of the Canganies and ascertain their whereabouts. In cases where coolies are wanted immediately they should be shipped at once for Colombo, the person thus ordering them, to pay the passage money.

Each Estate ought to pay in a ratio with number of men required or the Planters’ Association could charge as much a head and apply the profit, if any, to other useful purposes.

Coolies could always remit money to their country through the Agent, or Old Hands could make regular monthly allowances to their relatives, he amount to be stopped from their wages here.

The Government should be petitioned to place a Medical Sub-Assistant at Vethella Mandagam, on a good salary, to look after the coolies. This would be a great advantage to the whole Island as well as to Planters, as no sick coolies would be allowed to pass over, as they are now. A hospital would be required as well as houses for the Agent and his establishment, there being no houses at present in the place. But these are only secondary matters to be spoken of after the main thing is agreed to viz., the establishment of an Agency on the Coast”.

The Government did very little to address this report, until the shortage of Indian immigrant labour grew so bad that action was taken in later years.

Victoria Commemoration
Building Kandy

On June 29th 1897, Lady Ridgeway laid the foundation stone of the first permanent Headquarters of the Association on a piece of land in the centre of Kandy granted by the Crown. This building, to be known as the Victoria Commemoration Building was formally opened on 17th February 1900.

Incorporated in the Victoria Commemoration Building were memorials to men who helped the Association to attain the flourishing condition it was in 1900. The building remained the centre of activities of the association until in 1935 structural defects appeared in the building and for reasons of safety it became impossible to hold the Annual gatherings of the association in its Hall. In 1941, the building was demolished.

Temporary headquarters were established at the Queens Hotel Kandy, pending the finalization of plans for the re-building of the Victoria Commemoration Building, but for various reasons and changing circumstances, the plans were never implemented.

Memorials to the Pioneers of the Plantation Industry

Chapter 7 - Training

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Richard is now a Trainee Superintendent with a pioneer coffee planter named William Sabondiere who was one of the authentic grass-roots coffee men, since he started in Ceylon at the age of 16 at Black Forest Estate, in a region known as Pussellawa, near Kandy, under Lt-Col H.C.Bryde, who was a relative of his mother. In 1852, William Sabondiere was chosen by Baron Delmar Rothschild to develop the Delta Estate close to Black Forest and was now its Manager with plans to make it the largest and best equipped Estate in Central Ceylon. The Delta Estate was owned by Countess Gaston de la Rochefoucault (Mrs G.H.Cavendish).

Richard traveled on horseback from Kandy to Delta Estate and spent his first night in the one bungalow on the estate. The next day Richard would begin his training to become an Assistant Superintendent of a coffee plantation. He would be trained by William Sabondiere on the plantation – Delta Estate, whose Agent was Messrs J.M.Robinson. Delta Estate was adjacent to Black Forest Estate, but a good half day’s horse ride away.

Richard would spend the next six months with Mr William Sabondiere who would teach him all he knew about coffee planting in Ceylon.

William Augustus Sabondiere

Mr William Sabondiere was a hard task master and demanded close attention to every thing that he said. His philosophy was simple but effective. The experience of years of coffee planting and watching the mistakes made by others gave him the knowledge that he would impart to Richard.

He said: “The mistake that some people make is to believe that any half-educated person will do for a coffee planter; that less of natural intelligence and acquired knowledge is requisite for the tropical agriculturist than for his brethren, who are destined for the walks of commerce or the ranks of the civil and military services of government, this has resulted in the loss and disappointment that proprietors of coffee plantations have had to mourn over. To make a good coffee planter, as to make a good anything else, a man ought to have a sound mind in a healthy body. A robust constitution is perhaps more to be desired in this line of life than those in commerce, banking, the civil service and learned professions. A conscience guide by Christian principle, too, is of the most importance. Moral principle has not been strong enough to enable men to resist temptations to which solitary life, distant from social amenities and religious constraints and privileges, resulting in so many that began a planting career so well, have broken down. Comfort is found in stimulants; the man takes a drink that leads to habits and associations which deprive the victim of his own self-respect and the respect of even the coolies, it is his business to command. Rapidly or gradually the depths of degradation are reached and the once bright youth is a broken-down loafer. To be a good coffee planter it is not enough that a man should have a good constitution and industrious habits, with the power of controlling his appetites. He must have at commencing or acquire as he goes along, a faint acquaintance with many in Ceylon, to be thoroughly careful, successful and be well up in colloquial Tamil, at least. He attributed his own good relations with his coolies to his ability to communicate with them directly by fluent use of their own language. A great advantage is possessed by the Superintendent, who is able with precision to convey his directions to the workmen in their own language and perfectly to understand reports, written or oral, of his Kanganies (overseers of gangs) and the representation of coolies who may consider themselves aggrieved.

To be a good Superintendent, a man then, must be a bit of a psychologist. He must have a knowledge of the law at least so far as the relations of master and servant are concerned, and the relation of the planter and the owners of adjoining land and their animals that may trespass on to the Estate. He must be well up in sanitary science, especially “his philosophy of smells”. The planter ought to know and act on the conviction that while nothing is as deadly as dirt in the wrong place, nothing is more useful in the right place. Bone dust and ash are just like “line manure”, dirt. Each requires to be manipulated and utilized instead of being allowed to run to waste. He must know how to convert dirt from a source of disease to a source of fertility. He must know at least enough of the principles of medicine and surgery contained in the Medical Hints which have been prepared for his use, to be able to treat or guide the treatment of decease and ordinary accident among his workers. Even on the healthiest of Districts, fevers and bowel deceases will occur; collies will cut their fingers or toes or get bitten by noxious reptiles. The Superintendent must be ready to treat simple cases and have intelligence enough to know where cases are beyond his control and conscience enough to give such cases at once the benefit of those splendid and well-regulated hospitals in Gampola.

Kangani of 2007

It is in the natural and chemical science that the planter must possess and be ever acquiring knowledge. Acquaintance with the principles of geology and mineralogy will enable the planter to form a fair idea of the soil he is called to work on. Knowledge of its constituents will enable him to judge what the soil requires for a continued and healthy growth of a plant over severely pruned and handled to yielding the maximum of a most exhausting crop. Big word such as, geology and mineralogy ought not to frighten any planter.

The planter above all, perhaps, should have a competent knowledge of the science of agricultural chemistry. If able to try a few simple experiments, so as to test soils, or to enable him to judge the quality of the fertilizer imported and sent to the estate, so much the better. Bone dust may be impure or almost inert and even super phosphates may differ most materially in percentage of fertilizer qualities. There must be no slavish adherence to the results of mere analysis. Substances poor in fertilizer properties may yet be eminently useful from their mechanical and chemical effect in warming and disintegrating soil that is naturally stiff and poor. A good example is “manna grass” which when its ashes are analyzed yields only 3 per cent of potash and 2 of chloride of potash, against 81.5 of silica. What help therefore, can so wretchedly poor a substance, yield to the planter? It is most useful, both bedding for cattle and a litter to be applied to the surface of soil. The effect of the surface littering is much increased by the digging up of the soil, previous to the application of the manna grass. It may be buried in trenches cut longitudinally across the face of a hill; the trees not only benefit from the decaying grass, but from the loosening of the soil. The benefit is most marked.

This shows what scope the planting enterprise presents for the intelligent and discriminating application of the laws of agricultural chemistry to substances within easy reach of the planter, as well as imported fertilizers.

The planter should also be a botanist and horticulturist enough to have a faint acquaintance with the laws of vegetable life so as usefully to guide the operations of topping, pruning, handling and even manuring. Entomology, too, must be studied so as to enable the planter to have an intelligent knowledge of the history and habits of such “enemies of the coffee plant” as grub and bug.

Descendant of Indian Pluckers - 2007

The planter must be a bit of an architect, so as to judge of the fitness and purpose of the plan and elevation of bungalows, stores and pulping houses. He must also be a bit of a mechanical engineer to do justice to water power machinery and asphalts and of the best mode of applying them. Finally, the planter ought to be a good financier, for it is clear that the cost of starting and maintaining a coffee estate must be clearly understood and borrowings as much as possible avoided. Richard was given a number of books on these topics, to study and discuss with his teacher during the course of the next six months.

Chapter 8 - Coffee Cultivation

2008-11-17T14:27:00.005-08:00

The best season for starting on a project was from July to September when the dry south-west wind is blowing. The initial clearing of the land and preparation of ground prior to planting is of major importance; the success of subsequent operations and the eventual prosperity will depend upon it to a large extent. Clearing jungle for a coffee plantation is a major undertaking and trained elephants are used extensively in this work. They can manage any kind of terrain and can carry or pull great weights.

Clearing Jungle for Coffee Plantation

The jungle clearing is described by John Capper in his book ‘Old Ceylon-Sketches of Ceylon Life in the Olden Times’ in which he calls the ‘merry chimes’ of axes felling the glorious forests which then clothed the central mountains of Ceylon.

First the undergrowth is cleared, followed by the felling of trees and other heavy growth, after which the area is burnt. In forest-clearing, the wielders of ‘merry’ little axes were Low Country Sinhalese craftsmen who were adept at plying their small axes with rapidity and precision that was truly marvelous and who excelled in this work.

Two axe-men are used to fell the small trees, with three and sometimes four to larger ones, their little bright tools flung back over their shoulders with a sharp flourish and then with a ‘whirr’ dug into the heart of the tree, with such exactitude and in such excellent time, that the scores of axes flying about seem impelled by some mechanical contrivance, sounding as one or two instruments. The trees are not cut through, but each one is left with just sufficient of the stem intact to keep it upright.

Jungle Cleared and Ready for Planting

In half an hour a signal is made to halt, by blowing a conch shell. The axe-men would then take a break for a drink and later form a line at the periphery of the jungle. Obeying the order of the superintendent, the manager sounds the conch shell at which the axe-men with a shout, their bright axes are gleamed high in the air and sunk deeply into the trees, which at once yield to the sharp steel, groan heavily, wave their huge branches to and fro, like drowning giants, then topple over and fall with stunning crash upon the trees next to them, these having been cut through previously, offered no resistance, but followed the example of their neighbours and fell booming on those next to them.

Elephants are then used for the removal of the heavy timber that will be used later to build a house for the planter or the building for the storing and treatment of the coffee seeds. The burning-off process is then completed. The ash and other decaying matter are left to enrich the soil. The cleared land is then surveyed for drainage, roads and building sites for a Pulping House to be near a stream, Store and drying ground or ‘barbecue’ and a bungalow.

The burning-off process is described by another keen observer, Miss C.F.Cumming. ‘There is great luck in the matter of burns. Sometimes the fires die out too soon and the timber is insufficiently burnt. Sometimes they rage too furiously and the soil is scorched to such a depth as to be grievously injured.

Working Elephant

No sooner is the land cooled than an army of coolies overspread it and cut square holes in every possible corner, no matter how rocky the soil (indeed the rocky the better), or how dizzy the precipitous height; wherever a crevice can be found, there a precious little bush must be inserted and after a while as its roots expand a small artificial terrace to afford them space and prevent the rains from washing all the earth from their roots. Nothing can be more hideous than the country at this stage. To prevent soil erosion, before the coffee bush was planted, some small twigs and leaves of he trees that had been felled earlier were spread over the soil and where possible buried in the hole together with the ash of the larger branches that had been burnt.

Preparation for planting

Manuring of trees combined with draining and trenching is vital to ensure that the crop produces an adequate yield. Mr Sabondiere states, that “Draining to prevent wash and waste of soil, and a system of manuring while the trees are still young and vigorous tend to prolong the age of estates. There is no doubt that under such a system coffee trees may have as long an existence as other evergreens; excepting of course other contingencies as overbearing, attacks of grubs, the taproot coming in contact with rock, or becoming rotten from swampy soil, all of which bring the tree to premature decay. Preference is given to cow dung that is readily available. A much smaller quantity of cow dung than is ordinarily used or pulp will have all the effect of a larger quantity if mixed with a proportion of bone-dust or better still super-phosphate. Manuring with cattle dung, where the cattle are stall fed, sided by bone-dust or artificial manure, could be so managed that with an average expenditure of Three Pounds per acre per annum, properties of even medium soil might be kept to an average bearing rate of Ten Hundredweights per acre, which would fully repay the cost, and leave a large profit besides. All the prunings should also be buried. If labour cannot be spared for so necessary an operation as this, the out look is a bad one. Also, twigs should be buried in trenches or be burnt into ashes, while the larger branches could be converted into charcoal. It is an immense advantage to be to be close to inexhaustible reserves of humus and potash.

After a while, however, matters improve and by the time the coffee shrubs attain their proper size, the whole country becomes densely clothed with glossy green, and though the black stumps and great charred stumps remain standing for many years, they do gradually decay, or else become so bleached by the sun that the coffee fields resemble a gigantic cemetery, with headstones utterly without number’.

Coffee Arabica Plant

Mr Sabondiere also states that; “There are large direct benefits derived from a complete system of paths and cart roads through an estate (as well as the indirect benefits from the loosening of the soil in making them). The thorough roading of a property must be one of the earliest operations and even the sacrifice of coffee bushes on older estates is as nothing compared with the benefits conferred by paths and cart roads for which they are sacrificed.

It is said that the early pioneers coupled madness with courage and enthusiasm when they selected such places to plant at a time when there was no dearth of land.

Next was the construction of a planter’s bungalow and the factory, using the timber that was felled earlier. Kandyan carpenters and masons built the estate Pulping House, Store, bungalows and lines for the Coolies and when completed, they went back to their villages and the ancient communal life.

The budget for the buildings that were required was as follows;

Store 500 Pounds
Pulping House 500 Pounds
Bungalow for Proprietor or Superintendent 500 Pounds
Bungalow for Assistant Superintendent 300 Pounds
Lines for Coolies and families 500 Pounds
--------------
Total 2,300 Pounds
--------------
The Stores would be constructed of stone pillars, roof of galvanized Morewood’s tiles, sawn timber and coir matting floors in three stories.

The Pulping House would be constructed of Solid masonry, pillars and cisterns; a double floor for curing purposes and a corrugated iron roof.

John Capper in his book gives a description of a planter’s bungalow that he visited in the early days of coffee planting.

Workers at start of a Coffee Plantation (Picture)

‘On learning that we had reached the bungalow, I looked about me to discover the locality, but in vain, here was no building to be seen, but presently my host pointed out to me what I had not noticed before – a low roof thatched place, close under a projecting rock and half hidden by thorny creepers. I imagined this to be a fowl house or perhaps a receptacle for tools, but was not a little astonished when I saw my friend beckon me on and enter at the low, dark door.

This miserable little cabin could not have been more than twelve feet long, by six foot wide and as high at the walls. This small place was lessened by heaps of tools, coils of string for ‘lining’ the ground before planting, sundry boxes and baskets a rickety table and one chair.

At the farther end, if anything could be far in that hole, was a jungle bedstead formed by driving green stakes in the floor and walls, and stretching rope across them. I could not help expressing astonishment at the miserable quarters provided for one who had so important a charge and such costly outlay to make. My host, however treated the matter very philosophically – indeed he told me, that when he had finished putting up his little crib, had moved in his one table and chair and was seated cigar in mouth, inside the still damp mud walls, he thought himself the happiest of mortals’.

Sanitary facilities were completely lacking. Like his labourers, the planter had no choice but to use the fringe of the forest. Fires had to be lit to keep the wild animals at a safe distance; there had been instances where people had been killed and carried off. Disease struck time and again; malaria and dysentery were the worst predators.

Record of Productivity of Coffee trees kept by E.Barnes

Chapter 9 - 1855 - Life of the Coffee Planter

2008-11-17T14:27:00.003-08:00

It is now May 1855; Richard has finished his theoretical training with Mr William Sabondiere, with some practical experience on Delta Estate and has now begun as Assistant Superintendent of Delta Estate, South Division.

As he learnt during his training period, the greatest problem Richard has to overcome is loneliness. He knows that a person who is unable to live with himself for the greater part of his time, rarely made a success of a planting career. He would often not meet other planters in the district for weeks and the only human communication he had was with the labourers. He kept a dog as a companion and someone to share his evening meal with. He lived and slept rough. After a days work, when his band of coolies retired to their huts for the night, he would have to feed his horse, visit the sick on his estate and deal with estate correspondence. Later, he had a servant who lit a fire in the evening and prepared a meal of sorts. He had to be paymaster, clerk, doctor, judge, and surveyor, learning as he went along.

Coffee Beans and Blossom

His dress consisted of a wicker helmet covered with a long padded white cloth that hung down his back like a baby’s quilt, a shooting jacket and trousers of checked country cloth, immense leech-gaiters fitting close inside the roomy canvas boots and a Chinese paper umbrella made up his singular attire.

Richard could afford only infrequent visits to towns such as Kandy, and in the absence of recreational facilities, spent the better part of the day absorbed in his work.

A typical day would be – Breakfast before dawn, make a sandwich for lunch which he would carry in his pocket, to eat by a water course during the day spent covering his territory on foot or on horse back along the bridle paths and footpaths that had been laid out, returning home to dinner, starved as a wolf, late in the evening.

Picking Coffee

At harvest time the coffee plantations were at their scenic best. A quotation from Sir Emerson Tennent who was positively lyrical reads; ‘A plantation of coffee as at every seas on an object of beauty and interest … the polished dark green leaves … flowers of the purest white … jasmine-like perfume so strong as to be oppressive … bunches of crimson berries resembling cherries in their appearance and size’.

E.C.P.Hull was also almost moved to a prose poem: ‘Under the influence of the showers which usually fall in March … the advance relay of buds bursts into bloom, and the planter rises one morning to find the entire estate profusely decorated with snowy
garlands and the atmosphere heavy with their perfume … the millions of snowy wreaths resting on their background of dark green luxuriant bushes … produce altogether an effect not readily forgotten’.

When the coffee plants on the other Division of the estate were ready for harvesting, Richard was required to help the other planter overs ea the gathering of the crop. This occupied only two or three months of the year. This began about the beginning of November 1858 and went on till mid-January 1859. The ‘store’ was built rather lower down the estate by a stream so that water troughs could be used to transport the beans. ‘Spouting’ – the transport of the beans to the factory by water running through metal troughs – anticipated by more than a century a modern technique – applied in America even to coal. There was a drying ground next to it called a ‘barbecue’, where the beans were fermented and dried in the sun.

Sorting Coffee Beans

At the factory the main processes were: pulping; fermenting in huge vats in order to make it easier to remove the skin and drying in the sun on what were called ‘barbecues’ of whitened stone.

To get the coffee to Colombo was almost a greater problem than to grow it. Often there was no cart road from the estate and the coffee had to be carried in two bushel bags on men’s heads to a point where bullock carts could take over. The coolies were used to carry the coffee and this involved the proprietors in immense loss of time and labour just when the latter was most in need for “crop” as harvesting was called.

Tally of Coffee Beans

The coffee was taken over at the cart roads by contractors such as the de Soysa brothers, a class of men about whom the senders generally knew absolutely nothing, and in whose honesty they had every reason to disbelieve. Richard’s friendship with Charles Henry de Soysa was crucial in this regard and he made sure that the cart men saw that the coffee was measured and a way-bill signed, undertaking to deliver a like quantity in good order at Colombo within a given number of days.

A particular hazard to which this transport system was exposed was the taverns that were multiplying rapidly on all roads leading to Estates. Having escaped the depredations of the cart men, the coffee was delivered to depots in Colombo at a transport cost of about 3 pence a mile. Owing to erratic weather in the coffee-growing country, the beans usually needed a further week or so of the strong Colombo sunshine, and vast drying-grounds were laid out for this purpose. After that came the picking over of the beans, largely done by women, and massive machines that removed the “parchment” envelope.

Bullock Cart Transport

They received news of the death of Mr. George Bird in Kandy on 1st March 1857 with great sadness as he alone was instrumental in making Black Forest Estate the showpiece that it was.

Chapter 11 - 1860 - A time of rapid growth.

2008-11-17T14:26:00.008-08:00

Mary was the sister of Mr.T.Bracken who was the Assistant Superintendent of the North Division of Delta Estate. Richard would on an occasional basis visit Mr. William Sabondiere to discuss matters relating to the growing of coffee and on one of these visits was introduced to Mary, who with her father had come to see her brother. A friendship developed between them and with the good words of William Sabondiere, who was very impressed with the way that the young Richard had grown into an efficient coffee planter, became engaged in June 1860.

They planned to get married the next year. Their wedding was held at the Holy Trinity Anglican Church at Pussellawa on 6th February 1861. Witnesses at the wedding ceremony were her father Mr.J.Bracken, Mr. W. Sabondiere and Mr. Charles Henry de Soysa, a Sinhalese entrepreneur, with whom he had become friendly with during the course of his work on the Estate. The de Soysa’s were the richest family of Sinhalese planters at that time, with business interests in the transport of coffee to Colombo.

Holy Trinity Church, Pussellawa

Mrs. Cavendish agreed to construct a new house for Richard and Mary and plans were drawn up for a bungalow. The plans stated that; “Outside walls of stone, inner walls – sawn timber mudded between sawn reapers, planked floors and shingle roof. A store built next to the house. The budget for the above would be Three Hundred Pounds.

Coffee Plantation House

An extract of Richard and Mary’s Marriage Certificate is as follows.

DIOCESE OF COLOMBO
EXTRACT. CERTIFICATE OF REGISTER ENTRY
From Register of Marriage, Holy Trinity Church, Pussellawa. No: 41/37.
REGISTER OF A MARRIAGE SOLEMNIZED BY OR IN
THE PRESENCE OF A MINISTER.

MALE PARTY
FEMALE PARTY
1.NAME IN FULL OF
PARTIES
William Rowlands
Mary Bracken
2. AGE IN YEARS
Not Stated
Not Stated.
3. CIVIL CONDITIONS
Not Stated
Not Stated
4. RANK OR PROFESSION OR RACE
Not Stated
Not Stated
5. RESIDENCE
Pussellawa
Not Stated
6. FATHER’S NAME IN FULL
Not Stated
Not Stated
7. RANK OR PROFESSION OF FATHER.
Not Stated
Not Stated
8. NAME & DIVISION OF REGISTRAR WHO ISSUED CERTIFICATE.
Not Stated
9. PLACE OF SOLEMNIZATION OF MARRIAGE.
Holy Trinity Church Pussellawa

Solemnized by me or in the presence this sixth day of February 1861.

MINISTER= ( No signature given )
This Marriage was solemnizes between us{ ( No signature given of both parties.)
The Parties
In the presence of W.Wright.
1. Signature of Witness = ( No Signature given )
Name, Occupation and Residence of Witness = ( Not Stated )
2. Signature of Witness = John Bracken.
Name, Occupation and Residence = ( Not Stated )
3. Name of Witness = William Sabonadiere
4. Name of Witness = Charles De Soyza. Signed before me
( No Signature given )
----------------------------------
Minister
I certify that the above is a true copy of an entry in the Register of Marriages administered in the Holy Trinity Church Pussellawa, held in the archives of the Diocese of Colombo.
Witness my hand this 30th August 2002.
Certifying Officer
( Signature given)
f.j.r (30/8/2002)

Secretary
DIOCESE OF COLOMBO.

Altar of Holy Trinty Church, Pussellawa

Richard recorded the income and expenditure of the estate and made sure that they were within the guidelines specified by Mr. Willam Sabondiere, such as;

Based on the clearing of forest land to bring in coffee cultivation.
Year – September 1 to 31 August. First Second and Third Years:-

Purchase of 300 acres of forest land
@ 1 Pound per acre. 300 nil nil
Government survey fees 50 nil nil
Felling, lopping, burning, clearing,
Cutting pegs, lining and holing @
5 Pounds per acre for 100 acres 500 500 nil
Filling- in holes, planting and
Supplying; 100 acres @ 1Pound
Per acre. 100 100 nil
Purchase of 150,000 plants for
Planting and supplying @ 6 shillings
Per thousand 45 nil nil
Making nursery and purchase of seed 10 10 nil
Stone pillar and shingle lines 60 by 20 70 70 70
Superintendent’s bungalow 300 nil nil
Conductor’s bungalow 30 nil nil
Loss on rice 50 70 100
Purchase of tools 30 10 20
Roads, 3 miles 45 45 45
Cart-roads nil nil 200
Weeding 100 acres for @ 2 shillings
per acre per month 60 120 150
Additional weeding nil 60 120
Handling nil nil 30
Draining 200 acres @ 15 shillings nil nil 150
Superintendent’s salary 100 150 200
Conductor’s salary 50 50 50
General transport 50 50 50
Contingencies 50 50 50
Pulping House, Store, purchase and
Putting up of machinery nil nil 1,000
Picking, pulping and drying 400 cwt
Of 100 acres; 4 cwt @ 6 shillings nil nil 120
Transport to Colombo 1,900 bushels
@ 1 shilling per bushel nil nil 95
Colombo charges: curing and export
Duty nil nil 110
__________________________________________
Total in Pounds 1,840 1,285 2,510
__________________________________________
Pounds
Total Expenditure for the period 5,635
Loss: 3 years loss of exchange on 6,015 Pounds @6% 360
_____
Total expenditure 5,995
Less income from value of 400 cwt in London
@ 67 shillings per cwt 1,340
_____
Estate Debit Carried Forward 4,655
_____

Richard determined that he would have to advise Mrs. Cavendish and Mr. William Sabondiere that based on the current rate of yield without an increase in the price of coffee in London, it was necessary to expand the estate to attain the economies of scale to make the estate profitable within a reasonable time frame.

Richard continued as the Assistant Superintendent of Delta Estate, South Division.

This was a quite period in Ceylon, mainly owing to the obstructiveness of the Colonial Secretary, who, having no faith in planting prosperity, consistently starved public works and hoarded the revenue until he amassed half-a-million sterling in a surplus balance fund, which only the Secretary of State could touch and Mr. Cardwell accordingly swept a great part away for military expenditure and appropriated the rest to the railway debt. The consequence was that the main and district roads once more became nearly impassable, while new districts, Lemastota, Kandapola, Haputale and Madulsima languished for want of means of communication.

Coffee Estate Dimbula 1860's

On the 4th of April 1864, Mary Rowlands gave birth to her first child, a son Charles Theodore Rowlands. The child died soon after. The couple were devastated at their loss.

As no action had been taken to establish the Agency, the adhoc Indian immigrant labour recruitment arrangements continued and there was a labour crisis in 1864 that prompted the following:-

On 21st May 1864, Mr. Patrick Ryan of St Clair Estate, Dimbula, submitted a draft of a prospectus for a Ceylon Cooly Immigration Association which he considered should be “embodied in the Colony without delay, as the cry for labour is getting loud and long; and as we have our Commissioner of Roads and Civil Engineering coming forward at the 11th hour and stating – “I can no longer delay addressing you all on the all important subject of labour for the Public Works of the Colony, the insufficiency of which makes it matter for serious consideration”, the latter being the wording used by the gentleman in a letter addressed to the Colonial Secretary on the 26th January 1864. At that time coffee planting in the Dimbulla district had been at a standstill for 14 months for want of labour. On some Estates in other districts the labour force consisted of 20 to 25 coolies, when 100 to 150 were required and yet on other estates there was no labour at all.

Relevant extracts from Mr. Ryan’s prospectus are as follows:-

“The object of establishing this Association is to assist in augmenting the present insufficient stock of labour in the colony; which is found to be likely to endanger the interests of all employers of labour should a continuation of the same go on for another year. It is confidently expected that by the establishment and operation of the “Ceylon Coolie Immigration Association” the Ceylon labour market will be stocked to such an extent, that all apprehensions upon the subject will cease.

Firstly, It will appoint men of thorough knowledge and experience of the native character as its Agent in the fields to be selected for them to work in; a proper camp equipage will be furnished to each itinerating Agent so as to enable them to travel from village to village and amongst the agricultural population of their respective districts; they will also have a staff of peons under them whose duties will be to go amongst the villagers and explain to them the terms offered, and the advantages to be derived by immigrating to Ceylon.

Secondly, Agents and Depots will be established at the shipping ports on the Coast where necessary, and at Colombo; for the purpose of receiving and transmitting the coolies to the employers they are intended for.

Thirdly, The Association through its Secretaries will receive and forward sums of money, from its subscribers only, to its itinerating Agents for the purpose of giving advances and “batta” to the coolies engaged for the party sending the money”.

The matter was now given serious attention and the activities of the Planters’ Association were centered on improving the conditions for labourers traveling from India and vice versa.

Chapter 12 - The de Soysa Family .

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The British accepted the differences among the Sinhalese and other communities living in the country, but established a judicial and administrative system which held all men equal before the law. Under this complex order, no one was discriminated against and everyone was given an equal opportunity to benefit from the fast expanding opportunities the country had to offer. Distinctions were, however made on an occupational basis, based on division of labour.

After unification of the country by the British in 1815, the Kandyan families who were holders of the ‘Nindagam’ (King’s land) found themselves reduced to poverty, while many of the low-country aristocracy maintained or enhanced their economic power through the cultivation of commercially productive land in Coconut, Rubber, Coffee and later tea.

Drying Copra

The people of the low-country, it was felt, had been greatly influenced during the long years of colonial rule by Christian and commercial ideas. The low-country Sinhalese in the Maritime Provinces were considered more receptive and having acquired the trading skills of the foreign invaders, came to be regarded as giants in trade, commerce and industry, out of proportion to their share of the total population. The older families from Moratuwa and Panadura, such as the de Mels, the Peirises and the de Soysa’s were heavily involved in the plantation sector.

Warusahennedige Soysa’s from Moratuwa were the first on the scene and were the first and most powerful of the Sinhalese capitalists, he married Francesca Peiris and their second son Jeronis de Soysa was the first young man to leave Moratuwa to try the new field which the district of Kandy then presented. He was the founder of the de Soysa dynasty and had a very charming personality and the European officials were well disposed towards his arrack renting business in 1829 and by 1844 he had dominated the Central Province and had control of the Western Province. The Central Province rents for the year 1836 was 6,800 Pounds. Arrack was an important item of merchandise and found a ready market in the hill country and large quantities were also exported to India. The growth in demand meant that the coconut property holders in the coastal belt realized great profits from the distillation of arrack.

During his pioneering days, he was assisted by his brother Susew Soysa who was also an enterprising person. In his very early days he began trading in Kandy, taking up Government contracts and also won a contract to supply food to the troops stationed in Nuwara Eliya. On his regular visits to the interior he found scope for further gainful employment. With his transport network he was able to collect the produce of small producers in the interior and have them transported to Kandy where they were marketed. This no doubt was a difficult task, but he made good money out of transport.

When Jeronis Soysa faded out from the arrack business in the mid 1840’s, Susew Soysa and some trusted relatives acquired the Central Province rents which he was able to hold for some time. In 1846, he along with another person paid 19,700 Pounds Sterling for the Western Province rents.

Coconut Plucker

Three years later, he paid 20,000 Pounds Sterling to retain these rents. These figures only reveal the state of the arrack business during that time. Jeronis is acclaimed as the first young man from Moratuwa to penetrate the hill country for business opportunities. Although trained as a native physician, he saw a world of opportunity up in the plantation sector and though his beginnings were small, he expanded from being a firewood contractor to becoming a large plantation owner.

Most of the profits accumulated from arrack renting were invested in the acquisition of land for cultivation. His first investment made in procuring agricultural land cost him 650 Pounds in 1837. For many, this transaction appeared a sharp deal. The property involved was an extent of 482 acres, which formed a part of the Royal Garden of Hanguranketta and there was a degree of sentimentality attached to this sale and some felt that he had been referred to the property by the Village Chiefs. They were determined to prevent it from falling into the hands of a European.

Transporting Toddy

The tract of land in which there was a considerable quantity of coffee was known as Kings Garden, also included the adjoining forest land. After a trifling outlay on weeding and clearing he found himself in possession of an extensive and very valuable coffee plantation. It is said that the first crop gave him the whole purchase amount and something more.

Traditionally, under British rule, estates could only be sold to the British, but Jeronis Soysa made know that he was going to bid. Out of politeness, he was asked to attend an interview, although his bid was regarded as a bit of a joke. However, legend has it that, with his physician’s experience, he noticed that the Englishman who was interviewing him was sitting most uneasily in his chair and Jeronis realized that he was suffering from hemorrhoids. He asked the interpreter to offer the Englishman a cure for the complaint, in return for permission to buy the estate – and thus became the first native entrepreneur to own an estate in Ceylon.

Working on Coconut Plantation

It was George Bird, who applied to the Governor to have the old Palace at Hanguranketa and its land put up for sale, but his limit of price was 600 Pounds and Mr de Soysa stepped in with his offer of 650 Pounds, and thereby became the owner.

It was a sale by public auction and although there was some adverse gossip about the process, the fact remained that Jeronis Soysa in partnership with Mudaliyar Henry purchased the land for a trifling amount of just over One Pound an acre. This initial purchase was the turning point in his career. There was a complete social transformation that he gradually faded away from his arrack business and established himself as an owner of a plantation, thereby improving his social status from an arrack trader to an estate owner.

Many acquisitions followed and according to data collected at that time he spent 1,200 Pounds Sterling during the period 1837 to 1842 in securing further extensive land holdings. Like the European planters, Jeronis paid a great deal of attention to the welfare of his workers and it is reported that in one instance, he closed one of his own tavern situated close to an estate to encourage abstinence from alcohol among his labour force.

Rubber Tapper

He was a philanthropist in the true sense of the word. He was conscious of the communities where his properties were situated. He built out of his own resources, roads between villages in the vicinity of his plantations and Churches and Buddhist temples. He was so kind in his dealings with his society that the British Government was forced to take notice of these acts of benevolence. The Government honoured him with the highest honour of “Mudaliyar of the Governor’s Gate” in 1873.

After having reached the topmost of his career, Jeronis de Soysa withdrew from his business and settled down in the low country, leaving his brother Susew de Soysa the management of the properties.

By the 1860’s they had transferred their activities to plantation capitalism, both in the high and low lands. The low country holdings were mostly devoted to the cultivation of coconut and rubber. A random survey in 1862 revealed that Jeronis de Soysa had acquired land that was mostly in coffee. Further, he started expanding his possessions at Hanguranketa by acquiring his partners share in 1849 and his estimated revenue from this year was 1,000 Pounds.

His only son was Charles Henry de Soysa. In addition to obtaining his father’s estates in 1862, he inherited all the properties of Susew de Soysa who died without an issue. He then switched over from coconut and rubber to concentrate on coffee and later to tea.

Much has been said about the part played by British planters in developing a great plantation industry in Ceylon, but very little in known of their local counterparts who worked alongside them to establish it. Charles Henry de Soysa was so successful with tea that within a short period he was able to ship his own tea to London, which was held to be the exclusive domain of the British. He was a true and honest pioneer who married Catherine De Silva and with his six sons, Jeronis William Charles, Alfred Joseph Richard, Edwin Lionel Fredrick, Thomas Henry Arthur, Walter and Lambert Wilfred Alexander, established a plantation empire of super-eminence that even the British would find hard to match.

Jeronis de Soysa

Richard Rowlands and Charles Henry de Soysa met in 1859, through their common friendship with Lt-Col Henry Byrde and their interest in coffee and the transport of the produce to Colombo. They became such good friends, that in 1861 when Richard married Mary Bracken, Charles Henry de Soysa was one of his Groomsmen and witness to the marriage.

After the death of his first wife in 1870, Richard Rowlands married Charlotte Caroline Don on 21st July 1872 at Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya and Charles Henry de Soysa and his wife were there on that day. At this time, Richard was working for Lt-Col Byrde at the company store in Nuwara Eliya in the capacity of “Trader” and most of their trading business would have been conducted through the de Soysa’s.

Charles Henry de Soysa and his wife were also God Parents to their son William Oswald Rowlands in 1875 when he was baptized at Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya.

A seasoned planter he was, he saw he doom of coffee and the boom of tea and started to reduce the extent of coffee and introduce tea as a new plantation crop. He encouraged land to lay idle, but in this instance it was his conception regarding tea that made him
enlarge his holdings. With his new obsession for tea, he needed land that was freely available.

The family owned the largest acreage in Cinnamon, amounting to about 3,500 acres in Moratuwa, Salawa and Kuruwita. The produce from their coconut estate was converted to desiccated coconut at their mills in Slave Island. The vast array of export produce included copra, desiccated coconut, fresh coconuts, coir fibre, mattress fibre, tea, cocoa, betel leaves and plumbago. They found their way to several parts of the globe. To the bewilderment and pride of the local de Soysa’s; they considered no item of agricultural produce, manufacturing trade or industry inaccessible to the locals, though it was a time when Britannia ruled the waves.

As much as they amassed wealth with their stupendous industry and razor-sharp acumen, they turned a substantial slice of it for the succor of the needy and for the benefit of the society in which they lived.

The construction of the Medical School in Colombo and associated hospitals was mostly due to the magnanimity of the philanthropic Charles Henry de Soysa. The advent of the de Soysa Lying-in-home, Medical Museum, Bacteriological Institute, St Emmanuel’s Church and Prince and Princess of Wales College in Moratuwa and other schools and hospitals in Panadura, Marawila and Hanguranketta where the de Soysa family giving to their community had no bounds, are a silent testimony to their unfailing hospitality and grand generosity.

During the visit of the H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh to Ceylon in 1870, Sir Charles Henry de Soysa gave a banquet for the Royal Party and Government Dignitaries and also invited his friends to attend the event at his mansion “Alfred House”. Sir Charles and Lady de Soysa had ordered special gold crockery and cutlery to mark the occasion. Richard would have been invited but would have sent his apologies because of the recent death of his wife.

V.S.M De Mel in his book “The De Soysa Charitaya (Saga)” states that quote “ In anticipation of the visit to Ceylon of H.R.H the Duke of Edinburgh K.G., G.C.M.G., G.C.S.I.., P.C., the second son of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, Charles Henry De Soysa, having conferred with his uncle Susew de Soysa and other members of the family decided to extend a special invitation to him to a banquet to be hosted by him in honour of His Royal Highness at his residence Bagatalle Walauwa at Bambalapitiya. This invitation was conveyed to His Royal Highness by the Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson and on its acceptance, he started making the necessary arrangements for it, allocating a sum of Rupees 100,000 for the purpose. As the date of the reception approached, he engaged a large number of talented artists to see to the layout of the gardens. They were detailed to prepare prints and drawings required to embellish the decorations and illuminations to be installed in the spacious gardens and the Walauwa (Mansion) extending to 120 acres.

They were also directed to decorate either side of the road leading from Gall Face to the Walauwa. The Government also extended the necessary facilities for this purpose. He also engaged goldsmiths to prepare goblets, plate and cutlery out of solid gold and enlarged the staff at the Walauwa to attend to all needs of the occasion. The whole place was a beehive of activity with carpenters, masons and craftsmen of every type skilled in erection of Pandals and fixing illuminations, painters, plumbers and fitters all intent on their work and sparing no pains to make the function the grand success it was.

On the day of the banquet, viz, 22nd April 1870, people from all over gathered along the route of the Royal Procession. It was only after sunset that evening tat the majesty of the occasion and the grandeur of the preparations came into real focus. Multi-coloured lamps by their thousands illuminated the road, the trees and Pandals and the apartments and halls of Bagatelle Walauwa converting the whole area into a veritable fairyland.

When the state carriage carrying the Royal visitor and the Governor after passing through the illuminated streets, arrived at the gate of the Walauwa, they were received by C.H.de Soysa, Catherine de Soysa and Susew de Soysa. The Duke of Edinburgh who was dressed in the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet and the Royal Party were escorted to the upper floor. The Royal Party consisted of Sir Hercules Robinson, Lady Robinson, Miss Robinson, Private Secretary Stewart and Captain St John.

The music played in the hall was by the Ceylon Rifles Band. The Duke was very pleased at the dances performed by the local troupes and the music which accompanied them. A musical entertainment by the Davy Carson Group followed. The Royal Party was escorted to the hall where champagne was served to the distinguished guests. It was also available on tap from casks along with a variety of other liquors for the benefit of other guests.

In another hall, there was a drama performed in Sinhala which was greatly appreciated. An English translation of the play was distributed among the audience. A Tamil play was also performed by females whose contortions in various forms to the accompaniment of weird music, gave much amusement to the spectators. A bevy of girls spinning their “Rabanas” of their delft fingers whilst singing and dancing to music, was a spectacular feature of special interest to His Royal Highness.

Chapter 13 - 1861 - The arrival of Padre Rowlands.

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The story of the Coffee and Tea plantations and the Planters and their employees would be complete without including the work in Ceylon of Reverend William Edward Rowlands among the Tamil Coolies and other workers.

In 1858, while at Oxford University, William Rowlands took his degree in Classics at Mods and in Philosophy at Greats. At this time he came in contact with Rev C Evans, Incumbent of St Clements’ Church who saw him as a man of God and encouraged him to become a Missionary. He also conceived a fond regard for Mary Blackwell Evans, the daughter of his friend, which was fully returned. The decision, so gladly made, of undertaking missionary work, led to his unconditional offer to the Church Missionary Society for service abroad in any part of the world.

On 24 February 1861, William Rowlands, having passed the examination for deacon’s orders, was ordained at Lambeth Chapel, by Archbishop Longley of Canterbury, being licensed to his friend Rev Charles Evans of Worchester. During his curacy in his native city he became formally engaged to Miss Evans. The Church Missionary Society, after some hesitation on account of his youth and inexperience, now decided to locate William Rowlands in Ceylon, where he was to act as assistant in English work to the Rev: C.C.Fenn, Incumbent of Christ Church, Galle Face and in addition to take up Tamil work in the City of Colombo.

William Rowlands set sail for Ceylon in the P & O ‘Indus’ on 4th November 1861. Among the usual complement of passengers, composed of officials, soldiers, merchants and missionaries were a number of coffee planters returning to their estates, many of whom afterwards became the young missionary’s esteemed friends.

One of the returning Coffee Planters thought it would be good idea to give the Rev: William Rowlands some indication of the hill country to where he would be working and the difficulties in traversing the mountains and rivers he would encounter.
The Coffee Planter relates a story about the experiences of a friend who is a planter in the Knuckles Ranges in Ceylon.

The story he tells is of a pioneer coffee planter who on starting his career and wanted to go from Kandy to the Estate that he was to work on in the Knuckles Ranges.

Moor Man

“As there was no one to welcome him, he had to find his own way to the plantation, which he knew by name only. The Planter was having dinner at Spencers Hotel in Kandy where he was advised that the only way to get him to his future home was to hire a horse with a horse keeper as guide. He had to ride 20 miles and according to his reckoning he reasoned that if they started at noon he could easily reach his destination by 4 pm or allowing an hours grace by 5pm and enter the Estate in daylight. Sad delusion!
He got a horse from the Moors in Trincomalee Street, which was the best they had, but small, slow and weak. The horse keeper who was to be his guide could not speak two words of English, nor he any Tamil, so their conversation was very brief indeed.

They crossed the Lewella Ferry, to that point the road was good and the journey was plain sailing. However, on the other side (where the British army was massacred in 1803) there was no road marked and he was at the mercy of the guide, who zig zagged his way through the jungle, sometimes on a track, sometimes off one, until nearly dark. At length they came in sight of a hut and he was glad to see a European Planter there.

Lewella Ferry (Picture)

The Planter asked him where he was going, to which he replied to Maddakellie Estate in the Knuckles Ranges. When told he could not get there that night, he replied that he had to get there that night. The Planter asked him if he knew how far it was to the Estate, to which he replied, No, but it must be very close to it now as we have been traveling since one o’clock. The Planter then advised him that he was not halfway there and that there were three rivers to cross. He protested that he promised to be there tonight and that he must keep going. The Planter advised him that no Coolie had been over the route from the Knuckles for the past three days, which was an indication the rivers were impassable. The Planter advised him that as a stranger to the country, he had no idea as to the rapid rise of a river after rain and any attempt to cross the Madukelle River or any of the others on his little horse would result in being carried down the river. Moreover it would presently be dark and they would not be able to find the ford. This convinced him that he should share the floor and the meal that was offered. He enjoyed his first meal of rice and curry that was provided the owners. The hut was occupied by a native family and consisted of two rooms. This was at a place now the site of a considerable village called Panwilla. The old woman who inhabited the hut, supplied hoppers, rice and curry and coffee to the Knuckles Planters on their way to Kandy and returning, for which they generously gave her one rupee. Our friend made the best of the situation, rough fare it was at best. He borrowed a mat from the landlady and spreading it on the earthen floor, enjoyed “tired natures sweet restorer, balmy sleep”, better than he had done on a bed of down. Early next morning he awoke, the weather being so bad they could not venture out and settled to have a breakfast of fruit that was in abundance on the trees surrounding the hut.

During the afternoon three or four of the “Knuckles Bricks” en-route to their respective estates reached the house. They had been to Kandy for money to pay their monthly wages, though well mounted and although their homes were six or seven mile distant, could not that day face the rivers that lay between. One reason that the Planters traveled in a group was an incident where a Planter who was carrying his labourer’s wages, on his way back from Kandy, was waylaid in an ambush by Sinhalese Villages and shot. The robbery was un-successful as, though mortally wounded the Planter was able to ride to the nearest town before he fell. There are legendary stories of the drinking prowess of the “Bricks” and their life on the remote Estates on the Knuckles Ranges.

The next day he convinced his horse keeper to start on the next leg of the journey, even though he was a bit apprehensive about trying to cross the rivers. The first river was broad and crossed without much difficulty. The second was much the same, but when he entered the third river at what appeared to be a ford, he found himself in deep water. He jumped off the horse and let it swim to the other side and swam to some rocks and crossed over jumping from rock to rock. The fourth river was large, broad, rocky, deep and rapid and he was thrown off the back of the horse and had to hang on to the bridle and swam to shore dragging the horse after him. That night, exhausted by the effort to cross the rivers, he arrived at the bungalow of C.M.Oonoonogala, just at night fell. After a meal he fell into a deep sleep on a bed with a mattress. The next day he arrived at his Estate, much to the relief of his Kangani and his workers. His 20 mile journey that he originally thought would take 4 to 5 hours, had taken four long days, through jungles, mountain ravines and rivers. This was pioneering life in Ceylon”.

He then opened a book and recited from a poem by William Skeen, an elegy on the Bricks, quote:
“More generous hospitable men
They were hard to find, they were good to Ken;
Men whose traditions down will be
Handed to late prosperity.
Yet of a stamp that never more
May time to Lanka’s Isle restore.
An efflorescence of wild mirth,
Bursting restraint, gave sudden birth
To strangest vagaries and vents,
When from their forest life and tents
Or rude thatched huts and ruder fare,
To town they rushed, and freely there,
Like sailors fresh from a year long cruise
All cock-a-hoop for aught to amuse;
Or Californian diggers wild
To squander gold, dust, nuggets, piled,
Gave to their spirits high the rein
And heedless thus, while in the vein,
Over flowing with convivial glee,
And rash in there are jollity,
Grave Mrs Grundy, sober, prim,
Outraged and shocked and rendered grim!”

Rev. William Rowlands was impressed with the tenacity of the Pioneering Coffee Planters and thanked him for his narration.

Sailing Ships in Galle Harbour

As the Suez Canal was then in the course of construction, the passengers disembarked in Alexandria and crossed to the Port of Suez by rail. From Suez they continued their journey in the S.S.Colombo and five weeks after leaving England on 6th December 1861 set foot on Ceylon soil in the picturesque Port of Point de Galle. As the ship neared the Port of Galle William Rowlands was amazed at the fringe of coconut palm trees that bordered the sea shore.

The old-world Port of Galle, known for centuries to Phoenicians and Arab traders had reached the most flourishing period of its existence. Colombo was still an open roadstead and subject to the vagaries of the monsoons and on account of this P & O and other important shipping companies preferred the harbour of Galle to the uncertainty of anchorage of Colombo. Steamers and Sailing ships arrived regularly with passengers and mail and the picturesque streets of the town were thronged with passengers, only too eager to stretch their legs on dry land after the monotonous ship life of the Indian Ocean and to gaze at the wonders of the Orient.

Dutch Reformed Church Galle

The crowds of sightseers found their interest divided between the architectural character of the buildings, exhibiting as they did solid evidence of the Dutch occupation of the previous century and the oriental panorama of busy streets. The extensive fort with its ancient gateway bearing the date 1679 was almost intact and provided a picturesque setting to the busy eastern life which it enclosed.

Portuguese gallants and priests had introduced the mediaeval life and religion of Europe and then given place to stolid Dutch merchants and soldiers, bringing with them the trading instincts and Protestantism of Northern Europe. To the latter race were due its substantial buildings and many of the surnames of its inhabitants. At the time that William Rowlands landed an English Wesleyan Church stood within the fort and also a Dutch Church, the latter providing an antiquarian interest with its mural monuments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of Dutch officials of days gone by.

William Rowlands was met by Rev: J.Scott a Wesleyan missionary and later met Rev: J.Bamford, missionary of S.P.G. and visited his residence “Buona Vista”. He preached at the Dutch Church on Sunday morning, spent the afternoon with the Scott’s and met with a Mr Dunlop of Colombo who is describes as ‘a true Christian’ and an intellectual man.

After lunch he walked around the Fort marveling at the unique design of the Dutch buildings and houses and especially the Dutch Reformed Church. He went with them to a service at the Wesleyan Church that evening.

Galle to Colombo Road in the 1860’s

Next morning at 5.00 a.m. he took the coach to Colombo, the Capital. The drive of sixty miles was exciting as the road skirted the rocky shores passing through groves of cocoa and betel-nut trees and dotted on each side by the huts of natives at work at some branch of the coconut business. The natives had been attracted to this main road, and from to Colombo was almost one continuous village; there was no prettier seashore in the world, nor more beautiful surf.

Galle-Colombo Road and Fishing Boats

Every few miles they came upon fishermen drawing their nets, which were excessively long and took in several acres of sea in their sweep. There was no more picturesque sight than the drawing of nets, several hundred men being engaged in labour, while the beach was alive with women and children in bright colours, anxiously awaiting the result.

On the way, he learned that a pigeon post operated between Galle and Colombo and was inaugurated on 24th September 1850 by the “Colombo Observer”. The “Colombo Observer” was owned by Dr Christopher Elliott who arrived in Ceylon in 1834 as one of the three “Colonial Assistant Surgeons”. The medical arrangements of the island were at that time and for many years afterwards, in the hands of the Military Doctors, and this was an experiment to supplement the staff. Dr Elliott was first stationed at Badulla, but severed his connection with Government in 1835, taking up his profession in Colombo, becoming a frequent contributor to the “Observer”, which he subsequently purchased for one hundred and twenty Pounds Sterling. From 1836 Dr Elliott’ career was widely identified with the social and material progress of the Colony. He acquired immense influence with the natives at a time when European medical aid, was, as rule scorned by them. He was trusted and loved by the European and native community of Colombo.

Christ Church, Galle Face

He had Breakfast at Bentota and there met Rev: R.J.Parsons. The coach reached Colombo about 3.30 p.m. where he was warmly welcomed by Rev: and Mrs Fenn at the Parsonage, Galle Face.

Colombo was described as follows at the end of Dutch rule - “Colombo the Capital of the Dutch in Ceylon is a place of considerable consequence and strength from its natural position, as well as from its works, which were numerous and in good condition. The Dutch fortifications of the city were still largely intact, much as they were left when the Dutch surrendered the city in 1796, with a deep moat surrounding the whole.

The Fort, which is extensive, contains many dwelling houses, including the Governor’s Palace, which is a most superb building. The Pettah had also several good houses, churches, etc in it. The higher ground at Mutwal, to the north of the city was the residential quarter and in the place, altogether, were many respectable inhabitants. Colombo is also a place of great traffic by sea, the road-stead being extremely safe and commodious, particularly during the North-East monsoon”.

Colombo had long begun to extend along Union Place, Colpetty and in other directions. The gate of the Fort on both sides were closed nightly at gunfire and were not opened until 5.00a.m. next morning, to allow for the departure of the daily coaches to Kandy and Galle – a twelve hour run. The Cinnamon Gardens were as the name implies fragrant gardens of Cinnamon, with a few bungalows.

In 1851 The Right Reverend James Chapman, the first Bishop of Colombo established a school named St Thomas’ College that was modeled according to an English public school. It was Bishop Chapman’s foremost vision was to build a College and Cathedral for the new Diocese of Colombo of the Church of Ceylon.

St Thomas’ College Campus Mt Lavinia (Picture)

Thus on the 3rd of February 1851 the College of St Thomas the Apostle, Colombo was opened with the objective of training a Christian Clergy and to make children good citizens under the discipline and supervision of Christianity. Christian values were the cornerstone on which the school was founded. Students of all races and religions studied in harmony. The school grew from strength to strength at the place of its origin, Mutuwal, for over half a century, carefully nurtured by Wardens such as Reverend’s Wood, Miller, Read and Buck. Warden Stone in 1918 found the dusty environs of Mutuwal were not best suited for his pupils and so shifted the College to the picturesque campus at Mount Lavinia.

The Chapel of the Transfiguration (Picture)

The College is under the Church of Ceylon and run by a Board of Governors that is chaired by the Anglican Bishop of Colombo who is known as the ‘Visitor of the College’. The administration of the College itself is headed by a Warden assisted by a Sub-Warden.

There is also a Chaplaincy connected with the College and the College Chapel of the Transfiguration. The entrance to the College is marked by the awe-inspiring Chapel of the Transfiguration, which towers over the rest of the campus.

The chapel is a vital element in the education of students and is the centre of the spiritual life of the College, where many generations of Thomians have been bred and most importantly experienced God over the years.

The College choir ably trained by the Precentor, the most famous being Reverend Boyer Yin, still continues to maintain the highest standards in Anglican music. The annual Service of Nine Lessons and Carols is even today a much eagerly awaited event to worship and honour Christ, the Son of God. The carol service styled according to that of Kings College, Cambridge. The Guild of All Souls also takes a vital place in the Chapel. The Servers Guild as it is better known assists the College Chaplain at Chapel Services.

Chapter 14 - Padre Rowlands and the Tamil Coolie Mission.

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William Rowlands’ journals indicate that he took over the work of the over-burdened Incumbent of Christ Church in English work and met the Tamil congregation and their catechists and continued to work among the Tamil people of Colombo and continued the work begun by Rev: G.Pettitt, ten years before. He applied himself to the intricacies of the Tamil tongue with the same consecrated purpose which characterized his whole life. The Pauline motto “One thing I do” was also the note of William Rowlands life.

The Galle Face Church was built in 1854, on land purchased in 1853 and was described as being “on the Esplanade of the Fort called Galle Face, near to the bridge which passes from it into Slave Island and on the edge of the lake”. The Church held services for Sinhalese, Tamil and English congregations, a tablet in the church records the fact that “Mr Whitely ministered to congregations worshipping in three different languages”.

William Rowlands in addition to helping with the English work and the all-important study of Tamil, sought out and evangelized to Tamil labourers who worked in the extensive coffee stores of Colombo that were mostly found in and around Slave Island. He also preached at the Church to elderly people such as the Colonial Secretary, the Government Agent, and the Colonel of the Ceylon Rifles and others such as the Officers and men of the Garrison with whom he made many friends. A journal entry runs briefly; “Baptised a little boy of one of the Sepoys. Several Sepoys were present”. Another “Had a visit yesterday from Fred Jones, Private of 50th Regiment, whom I used to teach in St Clement’s Sunday school”. With the help of two Tamil catechists, William Rowlands learned the Tamil language and when confident that his knowledge of the classical tongue was sufficient, he went forth and took the next step to accustom ear and tongue to the colloquial, as spoken by the common people. Further practice was obtained by going out with catechists into the streets and lanes of Colombo. On one of these visits, he was disturbed by the miserable and thoroughly degraded state of most of those among whom he passed. In October 1862, following the break-down of Rev.Septimus Hobbs, William Rowlands was asked to go to Kandy to take charge of the Tamil Coolie Mission and join Rev.J.Ireland.Jones who was the Head of the Kandy Collegiate School, now Trinity College.

Rev.William.E.Rowlands

By the 1860’s much of the Kandyan country had been opened to coffee, leaving the dense forests of Dickoya and Dimbula. The adventurous British Planter had penetrated to the more open highlands of the Uva Province.

The problem of transport was still acute with a road only opened as far as Pulmadulla, but as Major Skinner, Ceylon’s great road maker, described it “there still remained at least 38 miles of the most execrable native mountain paths ever traversed and intercepted by rapid torrents, only fordable in dry weather. Over this path the Planters sent down their crops, which were always small and light, on men’s shoulders”. Such was the country and conditions in which William Rowlands was now to commence those indefatigable travels among Planters and Coolies with which his name is ever inseparably connected.

The labour to work the plantations was found in the abundant source of people from South India and whom Major Skinner called “the panting, half-famished creatures from the burning sandy plains of Southern India”, who were trudging their weary way down the North Road. These South Indian Tamils were the people to work among whom William Rowlands was allotted in October 1862.

Kandy was then a squalid town, but the comparatively cooler climate was a distinct gain after the stifling lanes of Slave Island. Kandy was also the centre of the planting enterprise and here forgathered from time to time coffee planters from the surrounding hills for business and pleasure. Also stationed there was a strong detachment of the Ceylon Rifles and the Garrisons of the redoubts on the surrounding hills were furnished from this detachment. Among its officers were such men as Captain Byrde and a subaltern named Tranchell, both of whom were warm friends of the young missionary, and more over were in sympathy with the work of the Tamil Coolie Mission.

Major Skinner Monument

The early days were occupied with constant journeys to the coffee estates around the Hill Capital. One such journey was made to the picturesque Rangala Hills to the North, passing on the way, as he traveler did, the scanty ruins of one of the great palaces of the last Kandyan Kings. He traveled by coach until he could go no further and then by pony to reach his destination. Until churches were built, his journal gives such entries as follows; “Held English Service in Court House at Teldeniya. Very few present.

Horse Trap

Another service is held in the Rest House at Kaduganawa. Many services were held in hospitable bungalows of the planters, as for instance, in the Moir’s bungalow on Hunasgeria which was reached by carriage for some miles on the Pangwelle Road, then by pony, where among the congregation was the famous “Jack” Tyndall, a sporting planter of those early days”. He also preached to the Coolies who assembled at one of the “lines” (row of Coolie dwellings).

Maturata was an important centre in those days, situated on the long winding mountain road to Badulla, the Capital of the Uva Province. He held a service in the “Fort”, which refers to one of the ring of abandoned forts such as Fort Macdonald and Fort Williams, by means of which the British troops had formally held the Kandyan country after the Uva rebellion of 1818. On another occasion, he went to a Sunday School in Kandy and on his way was requested by a young Burgher man to come and see his father who was ill, which did and read and prayed with him. He then taught the first class at the Sunday School that was composed of Burgher boys. On the same day he attended a Sinhalese service and preached by interpretation. He later drove to Titawella, a small Sinhalese village, just three miles from Kurunegala, where a nice little school had been built by the richest men among the Christians.

Coolie “Lines” on Tea Estate

On one occasion he addressed the coolies without an interpreter and was confident that he had mastered the language. In September 1863, he came down to Colombo by the night coach to be ready for the examination in Tamil, which he had to pass before he was allowed to marry. In November of the same year Miss Evans came out to Ceylon, escorted by her brother and the marriage of the devoted couple took place in Christ Church, Galle Face.

In 1864, William Rowlands and his bride returned to Colombo and for the first year or two resided in a little house near Braybrook Lodge, Slave Island. He spoke at vantage spots on the streets of Colpetty, Kayman’s Gate, the “Cheroot Bazaar”, Slave Island and Pettah and became a familiar sight in the crowded quarters of Colombo. The European Managers of the coffee stores such as Darley’s and Dickson’s Stores, or the stores of Messrs Robertson & Co and Tatham & Co, gave cordial sanction to his work among the Tamil and Moor women who in large numbers worked in the verandahs, cleaning coffee and the men who were generally assemble before the evening roll-call and the perfect quite of the store at that time of the day.

William Rowlands and his wife quickly made a large circle of friends among the British residents of Colombo. In addition to missionary friends, there were many such as the Byrdes, the Lawrences, the Guys, A.M.Ferguson, the editor of the “Observer” and the “Ferguson’s Directories”, Christian families like those of Major Skinner and Colonel Hamilton, one of the senior officer’s of the garrison, who were regular attendants at Christ Church. That same year he was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Piers.Claughton.

In 1865, their first son, who was named Charles Edward Rowlands was born. The Ferguson’s Directory indicates that in 1890 Charles E Rowlands became the Proprietor Planter of the Attabage Estate in Gampola. William Rowlands’ tireless activities continued and the strenuous days spent on visits to the Borella Civil Hospital and the coffee stores and streets of Colombo, contributes to the establishment of Christian Tamil congregations in Colombo.

Barnes Place, Cinnamon Gardens, 1865

In 1866, the Rowlands family moved into the Galle Face Mission House and became parents of a daughter named Frances Ellen Rowlands.

His next project was the establishment of a Girl’s Boarding School for the provision of higher education of Tamil girls. A sympathetic friend, Mr.C.P.Layard, the Government Agent of the Western Province obtained from the Government a grant of land in Ward Place, cinnamon gardens of Borella, sufficiently large for the reception of both school and a Mission House. Funds were raised and in 1867, “Mrs David Fenn of Tinnevelly, South India, laid the foundation stone of the Girl’s Boarding School and she had to walk over white sand and among cinnamon bushes to reach the spot”. The Mission house was completed in September 1868, the Boarding School at the end of October and on 1st December, the first pupils were admitted.

Grave Stone of Frances Ellen Rowlands
Holy Trinity Church Graveyard, Nuwara Eliya

While the Borella School and Mission house was under construction, William Rowlands made a temporary home for his family in the cool and healthy climate of Nuwara Eliya, the Hill Station of Ceylon. It was here that little “Nellie’ became very ill and her death took place in December 1867, under most distressing circumstances. She was buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya.

Another daughter, Alice Rowlands was born in Nuwara Eliya in January 1868 and during the next three years two sons, Harry Fenn Rowlands born 1870 and Fredrick William Rowlands born in 1871, both of whom in later years became C.M.S. missionaries.

In 1870, William Rowlands visited the Coconut estates and the cinnamon gardens that stretched between the coast and the Kandy High Road. The Managers of the estates were most co-operative and ordered the coolies and other workers to be called together. This gave him the opportunity to preach to Tamil coolies who worked on these estates and the Sinhalese who did the cinnamon peeling.

Between 1872 and 1874 William Rowlands made two trips to England, the first for an 18 month furlough and the second on the death of his father. From this time, in consequence of the death of his father Padre Rowlands now became an honorary missionary and used his ample means freely in the cause of the work he loved. In January 1873 another daughter, Lucy Rowlands was born. That same year he started work on establishing a Boy’s school at Ward Place that was completed in 1875. In 1876, a daughter, Zoe was born at Borella, shortly before which William Rowlands had bought a house known as “The Priory” in Nuwara Eliya. Richard and Charlotte Rowlands were regular visitors to the house and they became good friends with Rev and Mrs Rowlands.

Coffee Planter and Workers

Unfortunately, Mrs Rowlands health about this time began to give great cause for anxiety and after a prolonged illness she died on 25th August 1877 and was buried in the Colombo Cemetery. She had drawn to herself many friends from amongst the English people as well as the Tamils, by her wonderful sympathy and affection, largeness of heart and human understanding and amongst the Tamils many indeed felt that they had lost their ‘Mother’.

In 1878, the Tamil Coolie Mission had fallen on troubled days through on fault of its own. The coffee disease had made such ravages in what once was a prosperous industry and estate were being abandoned, coolies turned adrift and planters themselves reduced in many cases to beggary. In its blackest hour relief came to the planting industry. The tea shrub had been introduced some years before and at the time that Padre Rowlands began his permanent connection with the Tamil Coolie Mission, the old coffee estates were being planted with the new product which was destined to restore the shattered fortunes of the Ceylon planting industry.

For the next few years William Rowlands and his band of missionaries traveled along the mountain roads visiting the isolated planters, preaching to the coolies and the planter’s families and gradually gathering out in each district small but increasing congregations of Tamil Christians. “The Priory” in Nuwara Eliya became his headquarters. In January 1881, he wrote from Lebanon Estate in the Knuckles district where he recalled the story he heard on the ship coming to Ceylon; ”I have only been at home two days this month, and it seems probable that I shall be away almost as much in February”.

Christian Priests in Ceylon

His influence over planters and others was quite extraordinary. One Sunday morning, while playing tennis a group of planters recognized in the distance Padre Rowlands approaching on his pony. They at once, out of respect to the Padre whom they loved and honoured, put away their racquets and stopped playing. He was also a good horseman and on one occasion in 1882, was lucky to have survived an accident in dense fog on the Ramboda Pass when his horse and another collided. His horse keeper when describing the incident to the Ramboda Rest house Keeper remarked “If my master were not a man of God he would never have escaped”.

Rock on Ramboda Pass Road

The Tamil Coolie Mission, being without Tamil Clergy was very much undermanned, resulting in Padre Rowlands having to visit such distant places from Nuwara Eliya such as Kurunegala, North Matale, Madulsima and Morowakkorie. This meant that the indomitable Padre Rowlands lived in the saddle.

In 1884, ill health forced him to return to England, fully expecting, after a restful furlough, to return to his work. Long years of overwork and unprecedented excretions in a tropical climate had taken their toll on his body and he had to undergo an operation that left him in pain for the next nine years.

Feeling health and strength returning after a second operation, he offered himself to the C.M.S. for Ceylon, but no doctor would take responsibility for passing him medically fit. He became the Rector of Bonchurch, Isle of Wight.

Bullock Carriage (Picture)

In 1907, the C.M.S accepted his offer to return to Ceylon and in October 1907, Padre Rowlands and his daughter traveling on the P & O “Mongolia” returned to the Island. On the Monday morning Padre Rowlands, left for Haputale, in the breezy uplands of Uva Province, on the eastern side of the central mountain range, which was to be his headquarters for the next five happy years.

The island of Ceylon had entered upon a new era of prosperity – the result of the “rubber boom”. Many thousands of acres were being opened up in the low country for the cultivation of the new product, and this new ear added considerably to the task for which the Tamil Coolie Mission considered itself responsible.

New roads were being made, old ones improved and the railway through the hill country had crept over the summit and had reached Bandarawella. Other lines had been opened making accessible new tracts of country both to planter and missionary. Education was making great strides forward and even on tea estates provision was being made for the education of Tamil children.

Holy Emmanuel Memorial Church,
Lock Gate, Maradana, Colombo

In 1911, fifty years having lapsed since Padre Rowlands landed in Ceylon, the Tamil congregations determined to celebrate his jubilee of service. Special services were held in various centres and at the little Tamil church in Kandy, Christ Church, which had always been considered the “Cathedral Church” of the Tamil Christian community. A big service was held attended by English and Tamil clergy from every part of the island and the collection of a considerable sum of money was devoted to the setting up of a Pension Fund for Catechists to be called the Rowlands Memorial Pension Fund.

In the same year Padre Rowlands presented a church to the Tamil Christians meeting at Maradana. This magnificient gift was to be a memorial to his first wife Mary Blackwell Rowlands who had given her life in the service of the Tamil people. On September 19th 1912, the new Holy Emmanuel Memorial Church was consecrated by the Bishop of Colombo, in the presence of a large gathering of Tamil Christians.

Rev.W.E.Rowlands Memorial Hall
Lock Gate, Maradana, Church Grounds

In 1918, he decided to retire and gave his farewell sermon at St Mary’s Bogowantalawa, to the English congregation in the morning, where every lady and gentleman of the district turned up to hear this grand old Padre for the last time.

The last message of the veteran was preached in the Holy Emmanuel Memorial Church – his great gift to the Tamil people. In burning eloquent Tamil did he commend his beloved Tamil people to “the words of His grace” while many among them wept “that they should see his face no more” .

The Planters Association of Ceylon at a General meeting of the association, through it’s Chairman Mr.J.Graeme.Sinclair proposed the following resolution, which was unanimously carried: “This Association desires to express the deep sense of the Planters of Ceylon of their appreciation of the long and valuable services rendered to the community in general and to planters and their coolies in particular, by the Rev.W.E.Rowlands, Secretary of the Tamil Coolie Mission, and that District Associations be circulated with a view to collecting a Fund wherewith to perpetuate his memory; and that Messrs.C.Gibson, Keith Rollo, G.H.Hughes, E.M.Wyatt, the Rural Member of Council, the Chairman, and the Secretary be appointed a Sub-Committee to consider what form the presentation should take”.

After consultation with Padre Rowlands, it was decided that presentation should take the form of a silver salver with the following inscription: “Presented to the Rev.W.E.Rowlands, Hon. Secretary, Tamil Coolie Mission, on the occasion of his retirement, by members of the Planters’ Association of Ceylon, in affectionate and grateful remembrance of his long and unwearied ministry among the planters and their Tamil employees – J.Graeme.Sinclair (Chairman, Planters’ Association of Ceylon Incorporated), Kandy, Ceylon, 1918.” The balance of the fund collected was, by the express wish of Padre Rowlands was allocated to the Catechists Pension Fund.

The Most Reverend R.S.Copleston when he met Padre Rowlands in his latter years, remembered him as a strong and active man when he knew him first – courageous and outspoken; and it was delightful to find that he was in many respects as young as ever. He recalled how much he enjoyed their rides in Ceylon together, many rides they had taken, extending over many days, through the beautiful estates of the island.

J.Graeme.Sinclair

How pleasant were their recollections of those early starts and of the hospitality and cheerfulness that met them all along the way! It was delightful in those days when visiting a planter’s bungalow, the host would say “How many coolies do you want?” and in five minutes all would be made ready. They would hardly ever pass a bungalow without a warm welcome and he had the most pleasant recollections of such men as Graeme Elphinstone and many others who had gone to a better land even than Ceylon, with all its glories and its beauties….. When he as the Bishop, was requested to get a Padre for a district, some men said: “We want a man who will be one of ourselves, who will join in our sports and enter into all our ways”. Others said: “I like a padre to be a padre”. It was not easy to combine the two qualities, but they were combined to perfection in Reverend William Rowlands.

In 1919, Rev.William.Edward.Rowlands was made an Honorary Life Member of The Ceylon Association in London.

Padre Rowlands was “Called Home” in England, on September 25th 1927, having fought a good fight and finished his course, entered into rest he had so worthily won.

Chapter 15 - Development of Infrastructure

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When Rev. W.E.Rowlands arrived in Ceylon, the development of the Railway in Ceylon was in its infancy.

In 1862, the Legislative Council sanctioned the acceptance of a contract with Mr Faviell to construct the railway from Colombo to Kandy at a cost of 873,039 Pounds Sterling. The first section of the Ceylon Railway was opened from Colombo to Ambepussa on 2nd October 1865. That same year the first railway engine was imported into Ceylon.

Colombo – Kandy Railway Line

Mary Rowlands gave birth to a son James Andreas, born on 1st November 1865. The child died soon after.

During Governor Sir Henry Ward’s rule from 1855 to 1860 he disposed of no less than 111,596 acres for coffee planting. During his successor’s (Governor Sir.C.McCarthy) rule and in the time of General O’Brien’s Lieutenant Governorship, great progress was made in selling and opening land :- from 1861 to 1865 inclusive, 156,893 acres were sold. But, as mentioned earlier, the Government fell far behind in its part mainly owing to the obstructiveness of the then Colonial Secretary who having no faith in planting property, consistently starved public works and hoarded revenue until he amassed nearly half a million sterling in a surplus balance fund, which only the Secretary of State could touch and Mr Cardwell accordingly swept a great part away for military expenditure and the rest to the railway debt. The consequence was that the main and district roads once more became nearly impassable, while new districts, Lemastota and Kandapola including Haputale and Madulsima languished for want of means of communication.

Sensation Rock on Colombo – Kandy Line

It fell to Sir Hercules Robinson to remedy this state of things, which he did most effectively. So far as energy and activity are concerned, he was a worthy successor to Sir Henry Ward.

Life carried on as usual and on 10th November 1866 Mary Rowlands gave birth to a son James Henry.

In 1867, the Association addressed the Colonial Secretary, urging the establishment of a hospital with necessary staff on the Indian side of the Paumben Channel for the use of coolies who were often attacked with epidemics “while crossing the Paumben Channel and are landed on the Indian Coast, without any prospect of obtaining Medical assistance and in some cases are left to die un-cared and un-provided for. On the mere score of humanity something should be done to relieve the sufferings of those attacked, but when it is considered to what extent the Colony is indebted to the Tamil coolly”, the Association hoped “His Excellency will see fit to accede to the request which can be carried out by the Government alone”.

Steam Train at Kandy Station (Picture)

This resulted in the Ceylon Government authorizing arrangements to be made with local authorities in India for the reception of temporary buildings for hospitals, etc at the ports on the Coast.

The construction of the railway to Kandy continued and on 26th April 1867, the first train from Colombo arrived in Kandy, The line was opened for general traffic in the following August. Governor Sir Hercules Robinson speedily agreed to the extension of planting the districts of Dimbula and Dickoya.

Lion’s Mouth on Colombo – Kandy Line

The planting community was given a further great impetus when Governor Robinson arranged for the railway extension to Gampola and Nawalapitiya.

By the end of 1867, the railway was working well and its immediate financial success assured. The Planting Community had borne a significant portion of the cost of the venture.

For eleven years all produce exported from Ceylon had been subject to a voluntary tax of two and as half per cent. In the case of coffee the tax was one shilling per cwt. Thus four hundred and fifty thousand Pounds Sterling-almost a quarter of the cost of construction, was paid by proprietors of agricultural lands throughout the island. The results of the working of the line to Ambepussa and later to Kandy made it c lear that the Railway itself was a sufficient guarantee for any liabilities connected with the cost of construction.

Colombo – Kandy Line Tunnels

In view of this, at the Annual general Meeting of the Planters Association in 1867, Mr Byrde- the Chairman- proposed that the Governor and the Legislative Council be memorialized to repeal the export Tax on Coffee. It transpired however that under the Railway Loan Ordinance, the Export Duties (in common with all other revenue of the Colony) had been pledged as security for the sums borrowed for the construction works and that until all loans had been liquidated, the Government was of the opinion that it would be an act of repudiation to remit the duties. The proposal did not meet with success, but the duties were repealed in 1868 at the insistence of His Excellency Sir Hercules Robinson. Sir Hercules Robinson’s rule was peculiarly one of activity in Public Works – roads, bridges, irrigation tanks, etc.

The grand road which Sir Charles McCarthy (contrary to the wish and vote of the Colonial Secretary) had constructed from Pelmadulla to Haputale Pass was opened by Sir Hercules Robinson, in an improved form to Badulla and Passara and then carried on to the new Madulsima district right across the low-country to the eastern coast at Baticaloa for the benefit of a large native community.

Road Construction using Elephants

During the term of office of Sir Hercules Robinson, from 1866 to 1872 inclusive, 227,006 acres of land were alienated. After the Colombo to Kandy railway was opened in 1867 the Governor arranged for the extension of planting, the districts of Dimbula and Dickoya were entered upon and the new enterprise which received a great impetus when the Governor arranged for railway extension to Gampola and Nawalapitiya. Sir Hercules Robinson’s rule was particularly one of activity in public works – roads, bridges, irrigation tanks, etc.

Colombo General Post Office (Picture)

The Grand Road which Sir Charles McCarthy, contrary to the wishes of his Colonial Secretary, had constructed from Pelmadulla to Haputale Pass was opened in an improved form to Badulla and Passara and then he carried it by the new Madulsima district right across the low country to the eastern coast at Batticaloa, for the special benefit of a large native community. In the same way he constructed a cart road Galle through a large native district to Deniyaya, servicing Morawak estates, while large amounts of money was spent on irrigation works in the Southern Province. He witnessed the beneficial results of his policy on all sides in the low country, as well as in the rise of the new planting districts of Dimbula, Dickoya, Madulsima, Morawak, Korale, etc.

Mary gave birth to their one and only daughter Alice Hope on 6th April 1868.

Government Offices

In 1869, for the first time, in the completed form, in the Ceylon Directory, reliable statistics of the great planting enterprise, with the result that the 27 districts of 1856 had increased to 34 and an additional 494 plantations had been opened in the thirteen years, bringing the number to 894, requiring 742 managers and assistants (chiefly European), while the total extent of coffee properties was 380,883 acres of which 176,467 were under cultivation, the season’s export of plantation coffee being 835,686 cwts.

With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and steam ships replacing sailing ships there was a dramatic increase in the amount of coffee exported through the Port of Colombo.

Sir Hercules Robinson authorized the demolition of the defense fortifications of the Colombo Fort, resulting in Colombo becoming more accessible to all commercial centres, which were housed together within the Fort.

Demolition of Colombo Fort Walls

There was burst of growth in the building industry, to accommodate the needs of the fast growing economy. The influx of foreign banks into Colombo also required accommodation, provided in large part by the wealthy Singhalese.

The sky line of the City of Colombo was beginning to change fast and the new buildings offered a complete contrast to the old warehouses that lined the streets in the days of the old city.

The Manager of the old Oriental Bank, Mr George Smyttan Duff was the first European to venture into the building trade; the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank and the Chartered Bank had their beginnings in a building constructed by him.

Bristol Hotel - Colombo

The Mercantile Bank, the Bank of Madras and the National Bank of India were handsomely located in the Fort. Construction of the Grand Oriental Hotel in the Fort, the first hotel in the true sense of the word, was undertaken by a company specially formed for this purpose and with the Government’s blessing. The Wharf & Warehouse Company,

The Bristol Hotel, the General Post Office and shipping arcade, the Peninsular & Oriental Company, all found suitable locations. Just outside the Fort, from Turret Road eastwards the land was covered with Cinnamon until, in a bid a beautify the city, the Government laid out a Park and Flower Gardens and sold the surrounding land for the construction of residential houses. This area was laid out with tree lined gravel paths, often named after former British Governors.

One of the most impressive buildings to be constructed outside the Fort area was the Colombo Museum, built by Sir William Gregory in 1873. The contractor, a Muslim, when asked what he would like for a reward for good work, requested that the Museum be closed on Fridays and we understand that this continues even today.

Colombo Museum

Cathedrals and churches, mosques and temples, schools and colleges, belonging to the different religious groups were erected in different parts of the city. The British administration ensured that provision was made for recreational facilities for the fast growing urban population; Victoria Park, Campbell Gardens, Havelock Race Course, golf courses , cricket, soccer and hockey grounds, the Galle Face Promenade – to mention a few – still continue to captivate the local populace.

Grand Oriental Hotel – Colombo

While these facilities were initially provided for the exclusive use of colonial settlers, they were destined to become the foundation for local sportsman and women after the colonists left the country.

Chapter 16 - 1869 - The Beginning of the Coffee Blight

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Richard and Mary’s youngest son Richard William was born on 1st September 1869.

In 1869, there first appeared in a remote part of the country an enemy of the coffee plant, which was destined to sap the prosperity of the local planting enterprise.

Orange coloured spots first appeared in the coffee leaves on an estate in Madulsima. This was the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, which finally destroyed the great coffee industry. In a short time it had spread to practically every coffee district in the island. Although the disease waxed and waned in subsequent years, the coffee tree was doomed.

Exports of plantation coffee reached their peak in 1870 at 885,728 cwts, when total exports including small-holders coffee, were 1,054,030 cwts.

Lt-Col Henry.C.Bryde founded one of the first Agency Houses in Kandy and his company, H.C.Bryde & Son owned a large number of coffee estates in the older districts. The coffee blight had caused the cost of cultivation to increase to a level that the margin for profit was greatly reduced. The failure of the crops on estates belonging to H.C.Bryde & Son resulted in them being purchased by Price Boustead & Co who were connected with the firm J.M.Robertson

On 15 April 1870 Mary Rowlands died and the baby Richard William Rowlands died in September 1870. Richard was heart broken, with two children to raise.

It was noted by Capper that the monotony of the job once the exciting phase of clearing the jungle was over and the fact that coffee harvest lasted only two or three months of the year gave planters plenty of time to indulge in other recreational activities, including the consumption of vast quantities of alcohol.

Richard to a large extent had resisted the temptation to drink.

The coffee blight together with the death of his wife was too much to bear and he took to drink to overcome his grief.

The Europeans Only - Kraal Club

Mary’s parents had returned to England and he was now a sole parent with no immediate family support. During this period, the families of his employer Mrs Cavendish, Mr William Sabondiere, Lt-Col Henry McBryde and his good friend Charles Henry de Soysa helped with counselling him and providing assistance to bring up the children.

Richard soon realized that all was not lost and his friends would stand by him. He soon re-habilitated himself. With the permission of Mrs Cavendish, Mr William Sabondiere transferred Richard and the children from the estate bungalow to a house in Kandy where they could hire servants to look after the children, a cook to prepare their meals and a gardener to look after the garden. Richard then started training to become a trader in the trading division of Lt-Col Bryde’s business, H.C.Bryde & Company.

Kandy Street Scene in the 1850’s (Picture)

The change in employment could not have come at a better time for Richard and his family. He used his experience on a coffee plantation to help value coffee growing properties that were being sold and learnt about the various methods of financing of crops and the process of arranging the sale of coffee to importers in Britain and Europe. His family circumstance meant that he could only visit Estates in the Kandy district.

During his stay in Kandy Richard and his family would have had the opportunity of witnessing the Kandy Esala Perahera.

In April 1815, after signing of the Kandyan Convention the Tooth Relic was brought to Kandy in pomp and glory and the British Resident in Kandy, John D’Oyly once again commenced the procession carrying the Tooth Relic.

On 3rd May 1815, Governor Brownrigg held a procession in Kandy which excelled the processions of the Kandyan Monarchs. In this long procession the place of the King was taken by the deposed Chief Adigar Ehelepola who rode on horseback in the procession.

The British knew that the possession of the Tooth Relic had the authority to govern the country.

The Tooth relic is held to be the palladium of regal authority.

After the capture of Kandy the Tooth Relic was in the custody of the British, until 1828 when the Tooth Relic was transferred to the kandyan Chiefs.

The Kandy Perahera in its present form is the Dalada Perahera followed by four processions devoted to the four Gods Natha, Pattini, Kataragama and Vishnu carrying their insignia had its origin in 1775 under the reign of King Kirthisri Rajasinghe. The Perahera he inaugurated in his reign was confined at first to the four Hindu Dewales, because then Hindu practices and rituals had crept into Theravada Buddhism owing to the influence of Mahayanism as well as that of the King’s consorts who were Hindu Princesses from South India. During this time a body of Siamese priests who came to Ceylon for the restoration of the Upasampadha ordination were surprised to find a purely Hindu ceremony in the Capital of a pre-eminent Buddhist country.

To remove their scruples the King ordered a procession with the Sacred Tooth Relic to head the four Dewale Perahera and the decree has been faithfully carried out ever since. Today, he Sacred Tooth Relic itself is not carried in the Perahera, only a duplicate of the Casket in which the Relic is kept together with a few Seevali Relics is carried on the back of the gorgeously caparisoned Maligawa Tusker. This is because it is considered inauspicious to remove the Tooth Relic from its sacred precincts.

On the first new moon in July an Esala tree (Cassia Fistula) or at the present time, usually a Jak tree (Artocarpus Integrifolia) or Rukkattana tree (Alstonia Scholaris) is cut and the ‘Kap’ planted in each Dewale as a vow that the Perahera will be held.

Kandy Perahara

For five nights processions are conducted within the Dewale precincts round the Esala tree (or its substitute) with flag, drums and torches. The Kapurala (lay official of the Temple) walks in these processions carrying a golden weapon called “Ran Ayudhaya” said to belong to the Diety of the Temple and supposedly used by him in battle. These processions are held in all the four dewales.

On the sixth night starts what is know as the KUMBAL PERAHERA. It’s called by that name because the Esala tree is placed in a clay structure resembling a ‘Humbaha’ or ant-hill, round which the procession goes. It is on the sixth night that the Perahera is seen for the first time outside the Dewales and is joined by the Dalada Maligawa Perahera. The Temple chiefs wear their traditional white Kandyan court dress to walk the procession. Each night the number of elephants in the Perahera is increased, making the Perahera bigger, grander and more colourful.

After five such nights is held the RANDOLI PERAHERA. Randoli literally means “Queens Planquin”. Up to 1775 the palanquins carried alongside the elephants in the Perahera.

Once the Dalada Maligawa was brought into the procession, King Kirthi Sri Rajasinghe decreed that the palanquins should be put at the end of the Perahera, presumably because females could not be permitted to travel alongside the Sacred Tooth Relic. There were different kinds of palanquins. The King’s palanquin was called “Koonama”, the Queen’s “Randoli”, the priests’ “Pallakkiya”, the Chieftains “Dolawa” and the Concubines “Yakada Dilawa”. The more important the user of the palanquin, the richer was its ornamentation.

Flag Bearers

During the reign of the Sinhalese Kings, the king himself walked in the Randoli Perahera with his retinue, consisting of two Adigars, the Dissawas and other officials of the Court and that this section of the Perahera followed the last Dewale Perahera, the idea being that the King could not take precedence over the Dalada Maligawa or the Dewales.

The Randoli Perahera goes on for five nights and the last night is the grandest of all.

After returning to the Dalada Maligawa that night the Perahera goes out again, joined by the Dewala processions and passes along Dalada Weediya (Ward Street) and through Tricomalee Street to the ADHANAMALUWA VIHARA, where the golden casket is temporarily placed and is guarded by the Basnayake Nilames of the Four Dewales. This visit to the Adhanamaluwa Vihara (Cremation Temple) is by Royal decree of King Krthisiri Rajasinghe as a ark of respect to the Queen Mother who was cremated there.

Tusker

The Dewale processions return to their respective Dewales and go out again in the early hours of the morning for the DIYAKAPANA MANGALLAYA (Water-cutting ceremony). The ceremony is that each of the Kapurales of the four Dewales fill goblets of river water (purified by the sword of God). These four goblets are kept in the Dewales till the next year, when they will be freshly filled again at the next year’s Diyakapana Mangallaya. After the water-cutting ceremony the dewale Peraheras return along the Katukelle Road up to the Ganadevi (Elephant God) Kovila where certain ceremonies are performed.

The whole festival is brought to an end the following afternoon when the Maligawa procession returns to the Temple of the Tooth from Adahanamaluwa Vihara bringing back the golden casket, when the Dewale Peraheras join it at the junction of Kande Weediya (Hill Street), after which it proceeds three times around the Dalada Maluwa (Temple Square). The Perahera then breaks up and each Dewale procession goes back to its Dewale. In the days of the Sinhalese kings the Chiefs were then received by the King, to whom they did obeisance and reported that the Perahera had been held with due ceremony.

After the advent of the British the custom was carried on, and the Government agent of the Central Province, as a representative of the Government received the Chiefs. At the end of the Day Perahera Pirith is chanted in the Dewales and alms given so that the Gods might acuire merit; in addition, the mala Vishnu Dewale holds a “Wallli Yakum” ceremony to counteract the effects of the “evil eye”.

The main Perahera procession consists of five separate Peraheras.

The Dalada Maligawa Perahera
The Natha Dewale Perahera
The Maha Vishnu Dewale Perahera
The Kataragama Dewale Perahera
The Pattini Dewale Perahera.

The Maligawa Perahera is comprised of the following:-

The Whip Crackers who announce the approach of the Perahera, - the Flag Bearers who walk in single file on each side of the road and carry the standards of the different Provinces and the Temples,
- the Peramunerala – the official who rides on the first elephant carrying an Ola manuscript called the Lekam Mitiya, which is a register of the Maligawa lands as well as the tenants and the services due by them, - the drummers playing Hevisi or martial music on variety of drums,

Drummers

- the Gajanayake Nilame who rides an elephant and carries a silver goad (ankusa) which is the symbol of his authority,
- the Kariyakorale who is responsible for all the ceremonies connected with the Maligawa, walks next to the Perahera and is attended by minor temple functionaries, drummers and dancers, -the Maligawa Tusker carrying the Perahera Karanduwa (golden casket) containing the sacred relics. A canopy is held over the tusker and pavada (white cloth) is spread in its path (as a mark of respect) for it to walk on.

The Kariyakorale and minor functionaries

The tusker is followed by two lines of dancers facing each other on either side of the road with drummers in the centre and at the end of the retinue walks the Diyawadana Nilame in all the Oriental splendor. He is attended by lance (murawadu) bearers, sunshade bearers and umbrella bearers as well as minor temple headmen.

In order of precedence the Natha Dewale Perahera comes next , followed by the Maha Vishnu Dewale Perahera, followed by the Kataragama Dewale Perahera and the Pattini Dewale Perahera.

The long procession ends with the Randolis (palanquins) borne by the tenants of the Dalada Maligawa.

Chapter 17 - 1870 - Start of Tea Planting

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Nuwara Eliya was first visited in 1819 by Dr.John Dave and up this time had been left alone by man. In 1829 Sir Edward Barnes, the Governor of the Island, alive to its importance as an unpolluted area, commenced the construction of barracks for his soldiers and a bungalow for himself and directed the construction of a road. He issued an order to trace a road of about 40 miles long from Peradeniya, elevation 1,000 feet up to Nuwara Eliya plateau, elevation 6,000 feet and this was undertaken in 1828. A Sanitarium was later established to help soldiers and other Europeans recover from the ravages of tropical deceases contracted in the low country.
Sir Samuel Baker discovered the serenity of this mountain resort and having fallen under its charm, planned to make it his own paradise. He was the first to popularize this health resort and establish farms with colonists from England. He introduced a large variety of European vegetables that became staple crops in Sri Lanka. He was also the first to introduce English livestock to Nuwara Eliya.

Nuwara Eliya in the 1870’s

The early residents of Nuwara Eliya were mostly planters having their ‘holidays’ in the invigorating climate of the hill-post and many others from the low country made an annual pilgrimage to this sanatorium during the season. Before too long, the entire hillside was dotted with houses.

It was intended to be an English country town and forthwith, all the paraphernalia for such a perception was imported. These included a bailiff Hereford and a Blacksmith to work on metal. To be an Englishman, one had to fish and so it was painstakingly imported embryo and hatched brown and rainbow trout and the lake was stocked for licensed anglers. Hunting was also a popular pastime and Planters and soldiers on leave would indulge in shooting leopard, wild pig and other animals.

Hunting Party in Nuwara Eliya

Sir Samuel baker also discovered that steel making had been conducted by the Sinhalese in Nuwara Eliya, for generations. The steel they manufactured would have been used in their weapons and axes and other tools. He described the steel manufacturing process as follows:-

Quote “Having procured the desired amount of ore that had been mined in the Nuwara Eliya area, it is rendered as small as possible by pounding with a hammer. A platform is then built of clay, about six feet in length by three feet in height and width. This wall of wattle and daub protects the “bellows-blower” from the heat of the fire; and the bellows behind the wall. A small well is formed in the centre of the platform, about eighteen inches in depth and diameter: egg shaped. A few inches from the bottom of this well is an air passage, connected with a pipe and bellows. The well is then fitted with alternative layers of charcoal and pulverized iron ore: the fire is lighted and the process of smelting is begun. The bellows are formed of two inflated deer skins, like a double ‘bagpipe’. Each foot of the “bellows-blower” is strapped to one skin, the pipes of the bellows being fixed in the air hole of the blast. He then works the skin alternatively by moving his feet up and down, being assisted in this treadmill kind of labour by the elasticity of two bamboos, of eight or ten feet in length, the butts of which being firmly fixed in the ground, enable him to retain his balance by grasping one with each hand.

Plans of typical Iron Furnace

From the yielding top of each bamboo, a siring descends attached to either big toe, thus the downward pressure of each foot upon the bellows strains upon the bamboo top as a fish bears upon a fishing rod and the spring of the cane assists him in lifting up his leg. Without this assistance it would be impossible to continue the exertion for the time required. While the “bellows-blower” is thus getting up a blaze, another man attends upon the well, which he continues to feed alternatively with fresh iron ore and a corresponding amount of charcoal, every now and then throwing in a handful of fine sand as a flux. Occasionally, this man will also let out some slag. The bellows, from which a continuous blast is kept for three or more hours are worked by at least two other men who share the work by turns. After three or four hours the when the iron is found to be ready the sand is cleared away and the bloom pushed out through the opening and then follows the process of ‘cutting the iron’.

The bloom of iron is taken up in long tongs made of greenwood sticks tied together at one end and it is then beaten a little into shape with thick sticks, then while it is held down on a log with two of the wooden tongs, a third man takes a ketta (axe) and cuts the lump of iron nearly in half through, the gash so made is widened by the insertion of a green log, which is beaten in so far as to force the edges further apart; this is done as the quality of the iron may be examined, for the outside is spongy and the whole texture far from homogenous. The bloom is then thrown into water and taken out and left to finish cooling. The bloom thus made is soft and malleable and weighs about six pounds. Badly melted iron is subsequently re-melted and the final product eventually worked into hatchets, hoes, betel-crackers, etc; being of a superior quality to the best Swedish iron.

If the native blacksmith were to value his time at only six pence per day, from the day on which he first started for the mountains, until the day that he returned form his iron smelting expedition, he would find that his metal would have cost him rather a high price per hundredweight; and if he were to make the same calculation of the value of time, he would discover that be the time he had completed one axe, he could have purchased ready-made, for one third the money, an English tool of superior manufacture.

Time has no value, according to their crude ideas therefore, if they want an article and can produce it without the actual outlay of cash, no matter how much time is expended, they will prefer that method of obtaining it. Unfortunately, the expense of transit is so heavy from Nuwara Eliya to Colombo that this valuable metal, like the fine timber of the forests, must remain useless”.

The operations of these smelters and furnaces, that for generations provided the Sinhalese with the raw materials required for their currency have been verified by a good friend Mr Bandu Sri Munasinghe in his excellent website:- http://sirimunasiha.wordpress.com/

In 1834 Lord William Beninck signed a famous Minute calling for a Committee to investigate the possibilities of growing tea in India. First Secretary G.J.Gordon was sent to China to seek tea seeds and plants. Later he was followed by Dr.Wallich of the Botanic Gardens, Calcutta and factory farming commenced in a nursery set up for the reception of China plants. China ‘Jat’ and Assam ‘Jat’ seedlings were grown with some success. The name of the tea plant known as ‘Camellia Sinensis’ came into vogue.

In 1839, Dr Wallich sent some indigenous Assam Tea seeds to Peredeniya Gardens with a view to starting a nursery. A further 205 plants were sent to Peredeniya Gardens in February 1840. In May of the same year, the Superintendent at Peredeniya Gardens sent several plats to Nuwara Eliya and a man was supplied by the Gardens to look after them. This was after representation was made to the Government that tea was likely to prove a new and profitable speculation and a valuable source of revenue.

In 1841, George de Worms claims that his Uncle Mr Maurice Worms brought the first tea plants from China and formed a nursery of them on his estate at Pussellawa. Samples of tea grown there were sent to England and found to be of excellent quality. Due to the objection to the importation of Chinese labour and the then ignorance of Sinhalese to the art of preparing tea, its cultivation remained in abeyance for many years.

Croquet Club in 1872 in Nuwara Eliya

In the pioneering days of coffee and tea the names of brothers Gabriel and Maurice Worms, whose mother was the sister of Baron de Rothschild, planted tea on several estates besides the one in Pussellawa. A field on Condegalla (now a Division of Labookellie Estate) was also planted with China tea seeds. It was on Condegalla that Assam Planter, W.J.Jenkins carried out his first experiments in the manufacture of tea. The cost of production was over a Guinea. Thereafter, the Worms brothers concentrated on their highly successful output of coffee. The Worms influence extended as far as Uva, as tea was cultivated on a small block of land on the Kottagodde Estate, also North Punduloya Estate, not far from Condegalla. Tea was also grown in Dimbula and Yakdessa on Radella, Lindula and Dolosbage. There was also some early tea planting on Charles Shand’s Barra Estate.

In 1842, another installment of plants was received from Dr Wallich and some 30 of these was sent to Mr Mooyart in Nuwara Eliya. Reverend E.F.Gepp at the time, the tutor to the son of Sir.A.Oliphant, Chief Justice of Ceylon, recalled that in October a piece of jungle on land owned by Sir Oliphant was cleared and planted with this tea.

Gabriel Worms

Rev Gepp also recalled that the ground in question was in the neighbourhood of the “Queens Cottage” at an elevation of 6,300 feet.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – in one of his works – pays the following tribute to the Ceylon Planters who successfully overcame the disaster that followed in the wake of the baleful fungus.

“Not often is it that men have the heart, when their one great industry is withered, to rear up in a few years another as rich to take its place, and the tea fields of Ceylon are as true a monument to courage as is the Lion of Waterloo. My story concerns the royal days of coffee planting in Ceylon before a pestiferous fungus drove a whole community through years of despair to one of the greatest commercial victories which pluck and ingenuity ever won”.

Chapter 18 - 1871 - Trader

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An agency house, pure and simply is a company that looks after the interests of its clients, be they absentee proprietors or Estate owners, in the supervision of the Estates and the disposal of the crop. Ms H C McBryde & Son for whom Richard worked was such an agency. Supervision of Estates was work was highly specialized and self-contained. It revolved around the Visiting Agent or V.A. who owed his tremendous prestige to the awkward mechanism of coffee growing and the need to finance the crop. This lead to a system whereby ‘the output for the coming season was estimated shortly after the trees had blossomed and the berry still green, and on the strength of this estimate, the Agent made arrangements for an advance, either direct through a local bank or a financial house in London.

“For this work experienced Valuers are required and thus we find the leading men in the coffee industry being invited to form themselves into a mercantile firm and from this grew the system of appointing Visiting Agents whose work was not so much to advise on the management and cultivation of the Estates, but to estimate the amount of credit that could be given to the proprietor. Estates were also constantly changing hands and the Visiting Agent was called in on behalf of the vendor or the purchasing party to value the property. This involved considerable responsibility and the services of reliable Visiting Agents were keenly competed for by the Agency Firms”.

For this practical experience ‘on the garden’ was essential and thenceforward the ideal V.A was an efficient planter rather than an expert valuer. The experience and knowledge that Richard had gained while being trained and working under people like William Sabondiere made him an ideal person for such a position. Agency Companies such as Sabondiere & Co and J.M. Robertson & Co subcontracted a lot of this work to Ms H C Bryde & Co.

Due to family commitments, Richard could only visit estates that were within half a days ride from Kandy. This was not a satisfactory arrangement and his employer discussed the possibility of transfer to their recently opened branch office in Nuwara Eliya. The era of tea was just beginning to replace coffee and H.C.Bryde & Co saw an opportunity to capitalize on the expansion of tea plantations.

The Ferguson’s Directory of 1871 shows Richard Rowlands as a Storekeeper with H.C.Byrde & Co. Nuwara Eliya.

He was in charge of the store and was involved in the finance of the coffee crop, the valuation of the crop and the transport to Colombo via Kandy using the de Soysa’s transport facilities.

Disease was not the only menace proprietors of coffee estates had to face. Fire was also a very real danger, with large areas being destroyed in 1872. The damage done to plants and buildings had also to be assessed.

Through his work with H.C.Bryde & Co, Richard was also the Agent for some of the following houses that were available in Nuwara Eliya, during the season, when Europeans, to escape the heat in the low country would holiday in Nuwara Eliya.

House owned by Messrs J.M.Robertson,
‘Byrdes Nest’ owned by Captain Henry Byrde of Kandy.
‘Rose Bank’ owned by Mrs Brown

In the Kabristan Archives “Graveyards in Ceylon – Kandy region Vol IV” on page 30 the following entry reads:-

Jane Amelia Byrde (nee Walker (should be Waller)) Born Abt 1840, Bombay, India, married 1859, wife of Captain Henry Byrde, 57th Regiment, Lieut-Colonel CLI, died 30th September 1892, aged 53 years.

Her husband Henry Byrde born 3rd December 1837 in Ceylon,(son of Captain Henry Charles Byrde) died 10th July 1907. He served in the Crimean war and present at the battles of Alma and Inkerman. At nineteen years he was a captain, probably the youngest in the British Army. He joined his father in business in Ceylon and is believed to have regretted it. When the Ceylon Light Infantry Volunteer Corp was formed he was elected Lieut-Colonel. He was also involved with the construction of the Kandy Dam and served on the Municipal Council. Apparently he knew a lot about Kandy, tree planting and was a good amateur actor, etc.

Children of Captain Henry and Jane Amelia Byrde, were:-

· Henry Byrde **
· Robert Byrde
· Frances Byrde
· Katherine Byrde
· Amy Byrde, born Kandy, Ceylon.

In the Kabristan Archives “Graveyards in Ceylon – Kandy region Vol IV” on page 48 the following entry reads:-

A burial plot was purchased by Mr.E.M.Byrde (Evans Maburly Byrde – son of Rev: Richard Augustus Byrde) 14th June 1937 for Mr.H.W.Byrde.(Henry Byrde ** his cousin).

Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya and adjoining Grave Yard

Holy Trinity Church, Altar

where Richard and Charlotte would have been married

It was during this year that he met Charles Fredrick Don who had a beautiful sister,a Eurasian woman named Charlotte Caroline. Richard Rowlands was introduced to Charlotte at a party given for the staff of the Nuwara Eliya Branch by Captain Henry Bryde at the “Byrdes Nest”. It was love at first sight.

A short engagement followed and Richard William Rowlands and Charlotte Caroline Don were married at the Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya on 21st February 1872, with one of the flower girls being Alice Hope Rowlands and one of the page boys being James Henry Rowlands.

After the Wedding the guests adjourned to the reception at “Byrdes Nest”.

The Don family who had several business interests in the Town and District owned a property in Chapel Street next to a stream and on this land they built their first mud brick house.

Daub & Wattle Mud House

The Marriage Certificate of Richard William Rowlands and Charlotte Carline Don at the Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya on 21 February 1872, Witnesses are:- William Oakley and two others.

Their first child, Richard Walter Rowlands was born on 21 November 1872. The baby was weak and sickly, he was baptized on 27th December 1872 and he died on 4th January 1873. The burial took place at Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya on 6th January 1873, with the grieving parents being supported by Charlotte’s family. (This is confirmed by Eileen Hewson in her book “Graveyards of Ceylon – Nuwara Eliya – Vol II- European Burial Records 1843 – 1964, on page 35).

They had other trials and tribulations, especially when the steam beside the property flooded and nearly destroyed their daub and wattle mud house

The Ferguson’s Directory of 1872 shows Richard Rowlands as a Storekeeper with H.C.Byrde & Co. Nuwara Eliya.

John Wilhemus Don and Caroline were married at St Pauls Church, Colombo on 2nd December 1833.

It’s also interesting to note that Eileen Hewson in her book “Graveyards in Ceylon – Nuwara Eliya – Vol II – European Burial Records – page 32, indicates that Charlotte Caroline Don had a sister named Georgiana Frederica Don , daughter of John.W.Don, who died aged 8 and was buried on 13th October 1845 in the Holy Trinity Church graveyard, Nuwara Eliya.

John and Caroline Don also had another daughter Sophia Eleanor Don who was born on 18th November 1847 and was baptized on 27th February 1848.

Also, a son Charles Fredrick Don was born on 6th October 1850 and baptized on 8th June 1851. Charles Don is buried in the St Marks’s Church Graveyard in Badulla.

Chapter 19 - 1872 - New Products and Infrastructure

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Governor Sir William (then the Right Honorable Mr) Gregory arrived in the island in the early part of 1872, full of the belief that there was little left for him to do in the way of material improvements, save to build on the line laid down by his predecessor, more specially in carrying out the Colombo Harbour Works. He soon found out his mistake. Sir Hercules Robinson had pronounced for “Nawalapitiya and finality” in respect of rail, but the planting community and the Planters Association wanted a further extension into the other planting districts. One of the first questions that Sir William Gregory had to deal with was that of a Dimbula-Uva extension of 67 miles to Haputale, an enquiry and survey which he readily granted.

Viaduct on Kandy – Haputale Line

At the very onset of his career he formed a decidedly unfavourable opinion respecting the permanence of coffee and his public reference to estates “lapsing into jungle” excited a good deal of discussion. Sir William Gregory could have taken credit as a prophet, provided his opinion in 1872 had been based on an anticipation of the ravages of leaf-disease.

Few Governors have left their mark on the Colony so clearly and distinctively, as Sir William Gregory and progress marked the five years of his rule, in agricultural enterprise especially. Besides his encouragement and active interest in the great scheme of railway extension to Dimbula-Uva he sanctioned and arranged for the Contractor to extend the railway a further 20 miles from Kandy to Matale by a branch line. In the low country he carried out a sea side railway line to Moratuwa and provided for its extension to kalutara.

Next to establishment of the North Central Province and the revival of native industry in that neglected part of the country, the most noteworthy portion of Sir William Gregory’s administration and the one which is most likely to be productive of lasting benefit are his special encouragement of the introduction and cultivation of new products. He took a direct and personal interest in the Peredeniya and Hakgala Gardens and he readily assented to the establishment of a branch garden in the low country near Mirigama, in which to experiment with products unsuited for the hills.

Hakgala Gardens Entrance

It was hoped that this garden would have a better fate than that experienced by the “Prince Alfred Model Farm” that was started with an endowment of ten thousand pounds from Messrs de Soysa during Sir Hercules Robinson’s time, land being provided by the Government. As waste of several thousand pounds without any corresponding benefit, the “Model Farm” collapsed, mainly due through the absence of experienced trained supervision such as could only be obtained through a trained agriculturist from the Mother Country.

Charlotte Rowlands gave birth to a son Cecil Fredrick Rowlands on 23rd August 1873. An entry in the Baptismal records on 28th August 1873 at Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya indicates that the baby was dangerously ill and a private baptism was arranged.

The baby died soon after. Richard and Charlotte are devastated at the loss of their second son. Life continued with Richard involved in the coffee trade.

The worsening situation in regards the coffee blight and the drop in coffee production meant that the workload at the Nuwara Eliya store was diminishing rapidly and H.C.Byrde & Co. went into liquidation. The result of this was that Richard Rowlands took the position of RestHouse Keeper at Ramboda and Pussellawa.

Charles Don, his brother-in-law then took over the agency and the following entries appear in the Ferguson’s Directory for 1874, for the following houses in Nuwara Eliya.

Pussellawa Rest House in 2007 (Picture)

Messrs J.M.Robertson – Agent – C.Don
Rose Bank – Agent – C.Don and William Sabondiere
Byrdes Nest – Agent – Mr.Parsons
The Priory – Owner – Rev.William.Rowlands

The Ferguson’s Directory of 1874 shows Richard Rowlands as the Rest House Keeper at Ramboda and Pussellawa.

Chapter 20 - 1873 - Tea takes over gradually.

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The coffee fungus gradually spread across the island and production of coffee waxed and waned and there was a peculiar fluctuation in alternate years but each cycle of two years showed a progressive diminution in production.

Seasons Coffee Exports by Cwts Total

1874-1875 988,328
1875-1876 688,434 1,676,762
1876-1877 927,093
1877-1878 627,246 1,554,339
1878-1879 824,058
1879-1880 654,217 1,478,275
1800-1881 452,032
1881-1882 563,498 1,015,530
1882-1883 262,303
1883-1884 311,969 574,272
1884-1885 310,922
1885-1886 220,106 531,028
1886-1887 177,665
1887-1888 138,010 315,675

The end of coffee as a plantation product came in 1889 when exports fell to less than 100,000 cwts of which the coffee totaled 87,164 and small-holdings 10,748. Although coffee continued to be exported thereafter the amounts were negligible. The misery that was caused by this ruinous affliction was immense. Fortunes were lost, homes destroyed and lives ruined. And yet it was not something that occurred overnight. The disease itself was insidious; attacking savagely in one year only to appear in a mild form the next season. Estates would be so severely affected in one year that their proprietors would consider their abandonment, only to find apparently healthy tree yielding heavily in the following year.

Planting Tea Bush

Many Superintendents were thrown out of employment and were forced to return to their countries. A few indomitable planters such as Lt-Col Bryde and Mr Willam Sabondiere stuck to their posts and began to turn their attention to other products.

The period between mid 1860’s to mid 1880’s turned out to be the most critical period for Planters. It was in fact a period of remembering the old and nurturing the new.

The start of tea is the story of James Taylor and the Loolecondera Estate. James Taylor in 1855 arrives at the Loolecondera Estate and settles down in a temporary bungalow with Mr Hoffman, a Portuguese and ‘a quite sort of Gentleman’ who had been born and lived all his life in Calcutta.

Their home was a rough job, in James Taylor’s words, quote; ‘constructed of a few posts about the corner with boards nailed across, overlapping each other like slats, as open as well as can be, with about a foot opening above between that and the thatch. Whenever the light went out at night, a flock of rats from the jungle beside us came in looking for something to eat; and then the wind, of which we have plenty at this season of the year, blows a perfect hurricane in the bungalow, sometimes so as to put out the lamp. This is the rainy season with us and cold too; I wonder how the naked fellows of coolies can stand it all’.

Tea Planter’s Log Cabin (Picture)

The estate had been cleared of jungle and was ready for planting. James Taylor now had to get roads made and the ground “holed” for planting. With the help pf 200 labourers, within the year Loolecondera was in business. He spent more time and money than his proprietors had budgeted, but his roads were the best in the district and when finished cost nothing for two years. His thatching was good for five years against the normal three. He was a natural technician and was always looking for ways to make the estate more profitable – James Taylor’s never-rested mind found its outlet not in new jobs but in new products.

His chance came when the estate changed hands in 1857 after the death of George Pride, the owner. The estate was sold to Keir, Dundas & Company, the leading agency house in Kandy after George Wall’s. The two principals were J.L.Dundas and John Gavin. Taylor thought nothing of the former but John Gavin was another story.

John Gavin

Taylor calls him ‘the business man of the lot and perhaps the most important man in all the Kandyan country except perhaps Tytler.

John Gavin was not coffee bound; he was interested in the idea of diversification – cotton growing in the Southern Province for example. John Gavin retired in 1862, but he passed on the message to the two men who took over from him.
The ownership of Loolecondera Estate passed to two gentlemen named D.G.B.Harrison and Martin Leake. Harrison & Leake – great names in the history of Ceylon tea. They had started out as irrigation engineers and it was at this that brought them in touch with John Gavin, one of the previous owners of Loolecondera Estate. Harrison made the bigger splash at first (he was known as the King of Kandy), but was Leake’s name that has been immortalized, in a rather quaint manner. After several years as secretary and then Chairman of the Planters association, he went home to England and became the first Secretary of the Ceylon association, London and the telegraphic address of the body is “Leake” to this day. Cinchona provided the first breakthrough. In 1863, 14,000 cuttings of ‘siccirubra’ and 7,500 cuttings of ‘officinalis’ were produced in Hakgalla and some were sent to James Taylor at Loolecondra who got off the mark by planting each kind that by 1867, the first commercial peeling of Ceylon bark could be made, though it did not reach London until 1868.

The sequel was sensational. Ceylon Cinchona was immediately recognized as superior to the India, Java and other rivals; in fact John Eliot Howard, the quinologist, reported that ‘there must be something in the soil or climate of Ceylon peculiarly adapted to the perfect growth of this plant’. Howard’s report on the Loolecondera bark brought James Taylor right to the front. It was decided to concentrate on ‘officinalis’ and all the Hakgalla cuttings of it then available were sent, free of charge, to Lollencondera. By 1872, Hakgalla was overstocked with cinchona plants and James Taylor obtained 100,000 of them in a ‘sadly overgrown condition’. They were cut up, planted in nurseries and eventually put out in two clearings on Loolecondera and Stellenburg respectively, which became the most successful cinchona field in the island.

Stripping Cinchona bark growing amongst coffee trees

Unfortunately by 1886, overproduction of Cinchona, particularly in Ceylon had already brought about a steep fall in world prices – as James Taylor had prophesied years before that it would. Cinchona was a useful stop-gap, but it was not the crop of the future.

After saying that the credit for starting the tea industry of Ceylon belongs to Messrs Harrison and Leake, James Taylor goes on to say ‘It was they who allowed me to plant cinchona and ordered me to plant tea and it was they who paid for these things and stood the risk of failure’.

The first commercial planting of tea was on Loolecondera Estate, some 18 miles southeast of Kandy, No.7 field is where the first tea plants were planted.

Martin Leake

Mr James Taylor of Loolecondera – now acknowledged as the Father of the Tea Industry – was quite unassuming man who arrived in Ceylon towards the end of 1851 when he was but 17 years old and took up duties as Assistant Superintendent on Lolecondera. He remained on loolecondera for his entire planting career of 40 years and only left Ceylon on one occasion in 1874, when he went to Darjeeling in India to absorb as much tea lore as he could. He was painstaking in the extreme and by reading and experimentation took every opportunity to increase his knowledge of the tea-bush and its fragrant product. In a letter written by James Taylor he starts by recalling that how in his China phase a Cachar (North Indian) planter, Mr Noble, showed him how to pluck, wither and roll tea with a little leaf growing on those old bushes near his bungalow. All the rolling was done by hand and Noble also told him about fermenting and panning and the rest of the process.

Taylor made a further batch under the direction of the old Assam Planter, W.J.Jenkin, whom he met earlier experimenting on Condegalla for the Ceylon Company. A sample of this batch, together with seven samples Taylor had made before, was sent to Weinholt in Calcutta, India, in 1872. Taylor says with justified pride that while the Jenkins-controlled sample was valued a little higher than his own single-handed effort, all but two of these were ‘reported on as being better than the Indian teas then sold in Calcutta’. Up to this time Taylor explains that his entire tea making had been with ‘arrangements in the bungalow verandah’. Many famous Coffee Planters learned the art of tea growing and manufacture from him.

James Taylor

E.G.Harding who came to Ceylon in 1869 and started his planting career on Great Valley Estate, a few miles from Loolecondera noted that when he visited Taylor one Sunday that ‘The factory was in the bungalow. The leaf was rolled on tables on the verandah by hand, from wrists to elbow, while the firing was done in chulas or clay stoves, over charcoal fires, with wire trays to hold the leaf. The result was delicious tea which he bought for One rupee, fifty cents a pound.

He eventually built a “Tea House” as he called his factory. By 1872 Taylor was busy on a new project – a fully equipped Tea-House to his own design and ‘quite different from the Indian tea houses’. Taylor describes the tea-house as being fitted for acreage of 50 to 100 acres of tea in full bearing, though he thought it might do more.

Loolecondera Factory

The most exiting thing of all was, of course, the rolling machine, the first ever made in Ceylon. Taylor referred to it in a letter of 18 March 1872, quote ‘I have a machine of my own invention being made in Kandy for rolling the tea which I think will be successful. If so, we cannot help making a profit on tea if it grows of fair quality in this country. The picking or gathering the leaves and the rolling are the greatest expenses in the production; the rolling costs nearly as much as the gathering’.

The completed rolling machine was delivered in late 1872 and by January 1873 Taylor had been making tea with it ‘for about a month’. The machine consisted of a grooved cylinder traveling across a flat bed when connected to the water-wheel and must have imparted a twist to the leaf which was so much prized and was certainly present in the samples of 1872. At the same time Mr Jenkins was putting up a tea-house on Codegalla and Taylor as surprised to find it was a copy in all its working parts as his own, but Mr Jenkin did not make such food tea in it.

Manuring Tea Bushes

Charlotte Rowlands gave birth to a son William Oswald Rowlands on 29th May 1875. He was baptized at Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya and his God Parents in the Baptismal Register are shown as Charles Hendry de Soysa and his wife and Edward Lindsay.

About the time No.7 field came into full bearing, another Assam planter named Mr Baker arrived. Mr Baker showed him that he had not pruned sufficiently, so he did it all over again. Later, William Cameron commented that Taylor’s pruning method was the same as that used on Mariawatta Estate, famed for it’s high yields. Mariawatta was not planted with tea until 1878.

Taylor states, quote ‘Mr Cameron started finer plucking than I had been doing and began to top the sales lists, which I think we began about this time…. I also took to weekly plucking and topped the sales list for some time. That finer plucking largely increased the selling price of the tae and still more largely the selling price per acre.

So I was greatly indebted to Mr Cameron though I only met him casually two or three times about Kandy and Gampola’.

Ferguson’s Directory of 1878 shows Richard William Rowlands as being in Kandy.

In April 1990, the Planters’ Association of Ceylon started a testimonial to James Taylor. Subscriptions rolled in, a notable contributor being Sir William Gregory, who while Governor of Ceylon visited Loolecondera to see the tea and cinchona experiments. A silver tea-set was presented to James Taylor. It bears the inscription “To James Taylor, Loolecondera, in grateful appreciation of his successful efforts which laid the foundation of the Tea and Cinchona Industries of Ceylon, in 1891”.

James Taylor contracted dysentery and died on 2nd May 1892, still at Loolecondera. His people mourned him and carried his body to Kandy. Twenty-four men carried him, two gangs of twelve taking turns every four miles. It was about 18 miles from the estate to Kandy. They started in the morning and got to Kandy about four o’clock in the afternoon. The kanganis and the labourers walked behind the coffin. They called him “Sami Dorai”. His grave in Mahaiyawa Cemetery is inscribed as follows:

“In pious memory of James Taylor, Loolecondera Estate, Ceylon, the pioneer of tea and cinchona enterprise, who died on May 2, 1892, aged 57 years”.

The old planters were great empiricists and they were essentially coffee men catapulted into tea, rather than blacksmiths forced to turn garage hands. Seed was one of Ceylon’s earliest problems, bitter were the complaints about the price and quality of seed. There were three main sources – imports from Assam or China; tea seed nurseries in Ceylon; and seed bearers on individual estates. The old tea planters were compelled to work in this manner not only because of their lack of technical know-how, but an even more desperate lack of cash. With their coffee world collapsing around them, their one idea was to get the tea in quickly and gather a crop and sell it.

Those who criticized the methods of the early tea planters forgot Sir Edward Rosling’s terse phrase – ‘Ceylon tea was born in penury and reared in economy’.

James Taylor’s Grave -
Garrison Cemetery Kandy

The initial clearing of land and preparation of the ground prior to planting is of major importance; the success of subsequent operations and the eventual prosperity of the
property will depend upon it to a large extent. After the clearing of the land, the area to be planted is marked out with stakes and rope into long lines 6 feet apart. Tea plants used to be planted in straight lines of squares, rectangles or triangles, spaced so as to allow for total coverage when the bushes are mature. The modern method adopted on slopes and hillside is ‘contour planting’ where the lines of tea bushes follow the contour of the land. This system allows for a more economical distribution of bushes – 12,000 to 15,000 plants per hectare.

Originally, the seeds were directly placed into a hole in each ‘lined’ plot, but later, nurseries were set up for the purpose of raising young plants, which were then transplanted into the open ground. This period of propagation continued for a long time, but in recent years tea has been propagated by the vegetative method, which means that plants are grown from leaf-bud cuttings taken from selected parent bushes of a high yielding and disease-resistant strain.

Contour Planted Tea Estate

Tea from Ceylon falls into thee categories – low grown (on estate up to 2,000 feet high); medium grown – (between 2,000 and 4,000 feet) and high grown (over 4,000 feet). Each level produces tea of unique character. By blending teas from different areas of the island, Ceylon offered a wide range of flavour and colour. Some are full bodied; other light and delicate, but all Ceylon blends will have brisk full flavours and bright golden colour.

Because of the geographic location, tea can be plucked in Ceylon all year round; the west and the east of the island are divided by central mountains so that as each region’s season ends, the other begins.

Principal specialties are:

· Ceylon Blend
· Dimbula – probably the most famous of Ceylon teas. Dimbula is cultivated on estates first planted with tea when coffee crops failed in 1870. Grown 5,000 feet above sea level, all Dimbula teas are light and bright in colour with a crisp strong flavour which leaves the mouth feeling fresh and clean.
· Nuwara Eliya – are light and delicate in character, bright in colour and with a fragrant flavour. Their excellence is particularly heightened when taken with lemon rather than milk.
· Uva – is a fine flavoured tea from the eastern slopes of the Central Mountains in Ceylon. It is bright in colour and has a dry crisp taste. Uva teas make an ideal morning drink or an after-lunch tea.

A Tea Party in England

Chapter 21 - Governor visits the Planting Districts

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The first visit undertaken by a Governor to the District of Uva was that of Sir Hercules Robinson, in 1866. He was given a right royal welcome by the Coffee Planters of the district at Kalupahani coffee store. It was an event of great rejoicing to mark the expansion of communication from Colombo to the interior of the newly laid coffee tracks. They traveled several miles down the road from Kalupahani to meet and escort him to the venue. The most senior planter was Webster of Haldummulla, who was the first to use coffee spouting, Tom Woods of Spring Valley and Keilor Mitchell of Kelbourne. All others in the hey-day of coffee planting were there on this historic occasion. The road from Ratnapura to Haputale was nearing completion and this was another event that they had to celebrate.

The planters made use of this opportunity to celebrate yet another event of consequence. They took this opportunity to farewell the great Road Commissioner Major Thomas Skinner, G.M.C. He had completed the road from Pelmadulla to Balangoda at a cost of 9,163 Pounds Sterling against an estimated budget of 18,000 Pounds Sterling and on this splendid performance was permitted to continue the road to Haputala, down to Bandarawella and eventually to be carried through to Passara, Lunugala and then to Batticaloa. The road was of such importance to the coffee planters, that it thought but fitting that they should gather in strength to congratulate their friend and welcome the Governor.

In 1872, Governor Sir William Gregory paid a visit to the Kandy district and met with planters at the Mattakelle Bungalow of William Smith. Gathered together on that day were also, G.A.D.Elphinstone of Logie Estate, E.Smyth of Great Western, the two Heelis Brothers of Langdale and Carlabeck, I.Darley of Somerset, George Smith of Dessford, A.H.Thomas of Cymru, W.B.Henderson of Waltrim and H.M.Evatt, R.V.Dunlop of the Oriental Bank and A.M.Ferguson of the ‘Ceylon Observer’.

Governor Sir Gregory and Planters
At Old Mattakelle Bungalow in 1872
Governor William Gregory was conscious of the demands of other interests in the island and made the following remarks in a speech in March 1873 – “It has been said to him repeatedly in conversation that in furthering railway extension the general revenue would be used to promote a particular interest. He utterly denied the truth of this proposition.

It may be true that extension might increase the value of coffee property, but what, he would ask, was the basis of the whole prosperity of Ceylon but the great coffee interest? What, he would ask, gave him the surplus revenue by which he was able to make roads and bridges all over the island, causeways at Mannar and Jaffna; to make grants for education and to take measures to educate the masses; in short to promote general interests, industry and enterprise of the island from Jaffna to Galle but the results of the Capital and energy engaged in the cultivation of coffee. If followed, therefore, that in encouraging the great coffee enterprise he would be furthering the interests of the colony.

Charlotte Rowlands gave birth to a son Cecil Ernst Rowlands on 25th April 1877.

In 1886, the tea planters of Badulla, Madulsima, Hewa Eliya and Monaragala welcomed the Governor Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon in Badulla. This was the second visitation of a governor general to this remote area. This visit was of special significance and was undertaken for the sole purpose of separating the Province of Uva from the Central Province. The Government Agent as to reside in Kandy in Charge of the Central Province and his assistant to be stationed in Badulla in charge of the newly created Uva Province.

Government Agent and Kandyan Chiefs

The Governor undertook this tedious journey from Colombo, in stages. With a large retinue he traveled via Ratnapura and Halmadulla and broke journey at Dambatenne Estate that was owned by Reginald Beauchamp Downall, the Planting Member of the Legislative Council. Much of the journey was done on horseback, which gave the Governor the opportunity to see the countryside and its people. Sir Arthur was a man of great dignity and his hospitality to all and sundry was unbounded.

The pioneer planters, who performed the courteous act of greeting him, were composed of the old and the new, including Richard Rowlands, who would have made the journey from Nuwara Eliya to Badulla on horseback. Some of them had witnessed the storm when coffee was ruined and others still too young to overcome the results of the disaster. Nevertheless they were of one mind. They were well aware of the importance of extending communication to the newly opened areas in the province.

The case was well presented to the Governor. Their chief theme was, of course, the improvement of communication by rail and road. Tea was fast coming into bearing and the coffee harvested could not be transported to the markets, due to lack of transport.

In his remarks, the Governor said “The rise and progress of coffee planting in Ceylon is undoubtedly the most remarkable phenomenon that the island has ever seen since the days when, according to Singhalese tradition, the Yakkas were compelled to make way for the human race”.

The ceremonies associated with the event were held at the Court House in Badulla, on 2nd February at 4.30 p.m. The local gathering represented all sections of the Sinhalese community and the Kandyan Chiefs in their colourful regalia added greatly to the sobriety of the occasion. The surrounding hills were all thronged with estate labourers and villagers, who had all assembled to witness the event. The Buddhist priests in their flowing golden robes were found in large numbers. The Ratamahatmayas, Basanayake Nilames and all people of consequence were there to witness this great event. The Badulla Town Hall was decorated for the event and each community was entrusted with a specific task in keeping with their natural talents.

Prior to the reading of the Proclamation, each Ratamahatmaya was called upon to report verbally to the Governor on the conditions prevailing in his district. Dambawinna of Udakinda opened his account followed by Rambukpota R.M. being educated at St Thomas’ College, Colombo, spoke in English. Katugaha R.M. of Wellawaya informed the Governor of his problems in combating malaria, Mediwaka R.M. of Bintenne followed.

Governor Sir Hamilton and Kandyan Chiefs

After all the introductions, Mr Clement Smith read out the Proclamation in English to a silent audience. The most significant part of the ceremony was its presentation to the general public. The three most important Chiefs, Taldena, Rambukpota and Dambawinna were then called upon to mount the podium on bended knees, to receive the Sinhala version of the Proclamation to be read out to the people assembled outside. Mounting their horses, they proceeded to their allotted places amidst the trumpeting of elephants, the beating of drums and the firing of the Royal Salute.

The jubilations continued into the night and at the Grand Dinner held that night, the Governor, who no doubt had made a mental note of all the requests, made public his intentions, when he concluded his speech, by toasting “Success and Prosperity to Uva”.

The Governor was somewhat guarded in his comments on the subject of the railway extension, but in his reply to the Toast of the Queen, he clearly indicated that the railway would be extended.

The next morning, a mounted cavalcade set out in the direction of Spring Valley. The Governor and his party rode up through the rich valley along side the Baduluoya and Baddegamela rivers. On Rockhill, the Governor saw young tea, fine cocoa and flourishing cinchona on the hillside, fenced off by a line of Sapanwood trees, while on the other side of the rod he looked down through an avenue of rubber trees into a rich sheltered hollow, where was a fine sight of cacao, among the coffee and tea, the trees just coming into bearing and the dark red pods showing out from the light green foliage. Higher up, the Governor came to Glen Alpin tea-clearing, running below the road for 40 acres. Cutting and embankment construction

Here the size of the stems of tea plants as much of the cover of foliage no doubt impressed the Governor as much as the close-jointed coffee in Haputale did. At Glen Alpin glimpses were also obtained of the splendid cinchona groves and in Oetumbe and Weyvelhena and further on, the potatoes of the famous Kottagodde and Maryland estates, still kept in cultivation, betoken the richness of the soil and goodness of climate.

The railway was eventually extended to Badulla; the section from Nanu Oya to Haputale was opened in September 1893, to Bandarawella in 1894 and to Badulla in 1924. During this time coffee plantations were being converted to tea.

Hatton Station under Construction

The expansion of the railway also gave the Burghers of the country the opportunity of accepting minor posts within the administration of the railway, but qualified for more prestigious appointments later.

The coming of the railway as the chief means of transport, did not affect the locals adversely, as anticipated the British Commercial Class had it all. Native producers in the Sabaragamuwa District continued to rely on the additional means of transport. The Kalu-Ganga remained the main artery for the transport of goods and carts continued to provide a feeder service to the railway.

The information below only goes to show that the railway had obviously followed the planter. Railway stations became centres for transport of tea. The most important of them was Hatton, which served a wide planting area.

Horseshoe Bend on Kandy – Badulla Line

Year Acres under Tea Railway to
1873 1,083 Gampola
1874 1,750 Nawalapitiya
1884 70,000 Hatton
1893 273,000 Haputale
1894 305,000 Bandarawella
1895 380,000 Nuwara Eliya (Branch Line)
1924 400,000 Badulla

Opening Ceremony of Kurunegala Railway Line

Chapter 22 – Development of Colombo and the Visit of the Prince of Wales.

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To the early Sinhalese, Colombo was simply a rocky headland, forming a very shallow harbour. According to a Sinhalese authority, ‘Kolamba’ meant a port of call for vessels and the original name has remained. The first authentic record of the town was made by a Mohammedan traveler, Iban Batuta, who visited the island in 1346. A log entry in his diary refers to a voyage undertaken by him to the city of Kolambu, considered one of the finest and largest cities of the island of Serendib. A Chinese writer referred to the port as Kao-lang-wu or Ko-loing-lo.

In the 1500’s, Colombo was a made into a trading post by the Portuguese who later fortified the city against attack from locals. Colombo remained a fortress-cum-naval harbour during the Portuguese period. In the 1600’s, when the Dutch ejected the Portuguese from the island, Colombo was once again restored as the Dutch Capital in Ceylon. A new fort was built to strengthen the Capital and protect what the Dutch regarded as the gem of their Eastern possessions. When the British took over from the Dutch on 16 February 1796, Colombo at that time was described as ‘a place of considerable consequence and strength from its natural position, as well as from its works … The Fort, which is extensive, contained many dwelling houses, including the Governor’s Palace, which is a most superb building… Colombo is also a place of great traffic by sea, the roadstead being extremely safe and commodious, particularly during the North-East monsoon.

The shaping of Colombo began with the demolition of the defense fortifications in 1869 by Governor Sir Hercules Robinson. The winding up of the local rifle regiment which followed, led to the formation of the first police force in Colombo.

Chatham Street Fort in 1860

The rapid development of the coffee industry and later, the completion of the Colombo-Kandy railway made urgent the need for a safe harbour in Colombo, but the issue was complicated by the claims of Galle, itself a fine natural harbor, in the south-west of the island. But Galle was further from the coffee plantations, and due to the dangerous obstructions found in its shallow waters, the cost of opening it up as a large commercial port would have been prohibitive.

The main obstacle to the development of shipping for an import-export economy was the prevalence of heavy surf and a stiff breeze during the South-east monsoon months in Colombo. The problem was solved by the construction of a breakwater. Favourable reports on this suggestion led Governor Hercules Robinson, to approve the construction of the breakwater under the supervision of Sir William Gregory, to designs by Sir John Goode. The works were executed under the direction of John Kyle and was begun in 1875.

Andrew Carnegie, the American Billionaire, during a visit to Ceylon in 1879 said “We saw the new breakwater which the Government is constructing here at great expense. When finished it is proposed that the Indian Steamers shall call here instead of Galle, the harbour of which is dangerous. This may be a decided improvement upon the whole, but the tourist who does not see pretty Galle and enjoy the long day’s drive through the island to Colombo will miss much. The railway will soon be completed from Colombo to Galle and the days of coaching will cease forever. Future travelers will miss one of the rarest treats in Ceylon”.

Breakwater commencement Ceremony 1875

The foundation stone for the south-west arm of the breakwater was laid by H.R.H. Prince Albert Victor and George, the Prince of Wales as Midshipman on board H.M.S. “Bacchants” during a visit to Ceylon on 25th January 1882.

The Ferguson’s Directory of 1880/81 shows Richard William Rowlands as being in Kandy.

The other ‘Rowlands’ residents of Ceylon being:-
C.B.Rowlands – Chemist & Druggist - Kandy
John Rowlands – Farrier – Colombo
Rev.W.E.Rowlands – Church Missionary, Tamil Cooly Mission.

This huge wall, 4,212 feet long, took ten years and an outlay of 705,000 Pounds to complete. It changed an open roadstead into a harbour, sheltered on the most exposed south-west side of the island, but there were still problems in certain months, from storms from the north-west and north-east winds.

Colombo Harbour from Mutwal

The Government therefore decided to construct two additional arms – a 1,000 foot north-east breakwater from the Mutwal shore and a 2,200 foot north-west breakwater and another 700 foot between the centre and the north-east arms. These two new additional arms, with a lighthouse and connected works of land reclamation, coaling depots and other conveniences, cost in the region of 527,000 Pounds. Work commenced in April 1895 and the entire project was completed in 1903, making Colombo one of the most commodious and convenient artificial harbours in the world, with safe anchorage for mover 50 ships.

The development of the port aided the movement of cargo into and out of Ceylon during this period as South India lacked facilities for safe shipping. Colombo thus became by the turn of the century the central mail and commercial steamer port of the East. All the large steamers of the P&O Company and other famous shipping companies from Europe, the Far East and Australia began calling at Colombo on a regular basis, offering cheap freight to the world’s markets which was of value to the merchants and planters alike.

During the visit of the Prince of Wales to Ceylon in 1882, Sir Charles Henry de Soysa gave a banquet for the Royal Party and Government Dignitaries and also invited his friends to attend the event at his mansion “Alfred House”. Sir Charles and Lady de Soysa had ordered special crockery and cutlery from England to mark the occasion. Richard and Charlotte were among the invited guests.

The Ferguson’s Directory of 1883/84 shows Richard William Rowlands as being in Nuwara Eliya.

The other ‘Rowlands’ residents of Ceylon being:-
C.B.Rowlands – Apothecaries Hall – Kandy
John Rowlands – Farrier – Colombo
Rev.W.E.Rowlands – Church Missionary – Tamil Cooly Mission

On 1 March 1883 the “last block” of the Southern Arm of the Colombo Breakwater was laid by Mrs Kyle. In May, Messrs Whittall & Co imported the first “Jinricksha” that they hoped would take over from the rickshaw. On 30 July, the first public sale of Ceylon Teas in Colombo took place at the office of Messrs Somerville & Co,

1884 saw the celebration of the Jubilee of the “Ceylon Observer” newspaper that was started on 4th February 1834 and during the same month a successful elephant kraal was held at Avissawella in honour of Governor Sir William Gregory; thirteen elephants were kraaled. A financial crisis was averted with the suspension of the Oriental Bank Corporation and the Governor guaranteeing the notes of the Oriental Bank Corporation and proposing a new Bank and Company on 5 May 1884. The railway to Hatton was opened on 4 June. An important event took place on 28 June in Kandy when the Governor held a Levee at which there was an investiture of native headmen and the rank of Dissawe, which he had revived, was conferred on three Kandyan Chiefs.

A new dioptic flashing light was exhibited from the Colombo clock-tower on 1 January 1885.

A very happy event then took place for the Rowlands family. Richard’s eldest daughter Alice Hope Rowlands got married to John Dudley Ferdinands on 28th January 1885, at Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya.

The reception was at the Grand Hotel, Nuwara Eliya.

Painting of The Grand Hotel Nuwara Eliya in 1892

During the year, the railway from Talawkele to Nanuoya was opened and in October new railway services were inaugurated with express trains between Colombo and Polgahawela with “Refreshment Cars” between Colombo and Nawalpitiya.

The Ferguson’s Directory of 1885-86 shows Richard William Rowlands as being in Nuwara Eliya.

The other ‘Rowlands’ residents of Ceylon being:-

Rev. W.E Rowlands – Church Missionary
C.B.Rowlands – Apothecary – Kandy
J.Rowlands – Farrier – Colombo
B (Bastian).Rowlands – Planter (Lawrence Estate, Norwood).

In March 1885, Charlotte’s mother, aged 73 died and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church graveyard on 29th March 1885. (This is confirmed by Eileen Hewson in her book “Graveyards of Ceylon – Nuwara Eliya – Vol II- European Burial Records 1843 – 1964, on page 37).

Charlotte gave birth to a son, Arthur Percival Leopold Rowlands on 3 October 1885.

Baptismal record of Arthur Percival Rowlands (Picture)

Arthur Percival Leopold (named after the King of Belgium) Rowlands was baptized at Holy Trinity Church, Nuwara Eliya on 30th January 1886 by Reverend H Horsley.

Chapter 23 – Tea Factories and Tea Production

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The history of Ceylon’s tea industry is one of handicaps overcome and finally put to good use. The switch from coffee to tea was so unexpected that the old coffee planters were, virtually overnight, catapulted into a completely new era. No proper research had been done in the island to determine how best to propagate tea and above all, how to understand the numerous stages of its growth and manufacture. In the initial stages the greatest drawback to producing marketable tea was the varying quality and character of the leaf from each plantation.

Lack of capital was a major factor for the earliest planters, who had no choice but to convert their existing coffee houses into tea factories. These early conversions did not prove a success in the long term because tea production required more space and adding extra floors was expensive.

Dambatenne Tea Factory

As production increased, the financial problems of mechanization had to be met. It was therefore suggested that instead of each planter attempting to cure his own leaf, they should raise the capital among themselves to establish a well-equipped factory in each centre of tea cultivation in which the leaf of the district could be properly cured under skilled supervision. This would cut the cost and produce a uniform quality tea with more appeal for the buyers.

Property owners soon realized the economics of large scale production and the move led in time to the formation of limited liability companies to take over groups of estates or to work central factories involved in the curing of their own leaf and for a fixed charge the curing of leaf from neighbouring estates that could not afford the luxury of their own factories.

Although there are many ways in which the leaf of Camellia sinensis may be prepared, only three popular types of tea leaf reach the world markets: black, green and oolong. Black tea is the type for which Ceylon is noted; its particular characteristics are that the leaves are fully fermented in the process of manufacture. In the production of green tea the leaves do not undergo any fermentation at all during manufacture. Oolong is a semi-fermented tea, mostly manufactured in China.

In Ceylon, initially, tea was prepared by hand, as was done by James Taylor. Processing tea in those days was not an enjoyable task; the leaf had to be hand rolled on tables and fired over charcoal stoves.

Tea Manufacturing Process Display at Mackwoods Labookellie Factory

During the early stages, power to work the factory was provided by water-wheel and it was for this reason that the original tea factories were located close to streams or rivers. But this meant that factories could not be worked during periods of drought so they were forced to seek other sources of power.

Coarse Tea Sorting In the 1880’s

This method might have continued so long as the intake of green leaf was limited, but with the rapid increase in the number of tea estates and the size of the crop and the necessary introduction of machinery in the 1880’s, tea began to be manufactured rather than prepared.

Large Tea Factories were built at all altitudes, as part of a tea estate, in order to reduce the time between plucking and processing the leaf to a minimum. The steam engine became widely used until the internal combustion engine was introduced.

The manipulation and curing of the tea leaf are the most difficult part of the tea planter’s work and the value of the manufactured tea depends entirely upon the skill and care with which this is done. Leaf grown under the most favourable conditions of climate and soil will be unacceptable to the consumer if the curing is defective.

Weighing Tea Leaves

The cultivation and manufacture of Ceylon Tea is marked by an insistence on the purity and unadulterated quality of the product and from inception of the industry, Ceylon has been known for ensuring that the doubtful nature of some of the early blends were completely eliminated. The tea as plucked from the bush even on dry days consists of about seventy-five percent of moisture, a percentage of this moisture varying from thirty to forty percent, depending on whether the weather is damp or dry, requires to be extracted from the leaf by withering before the fibre of the leaf and stalk will stand the strain of rolling. When transporting leaf to the factory every care is required to be exercised, not to allow fermentation to commence, also the leaf may be damaged unless carefully handled. When the leaf arrives at the factory it is quickly weighed and then spread evenly and ‘fluffed’ on tats or troughs stretching the whole length of the upper floors where there is a flow of air. The troughs have a perforated base and air passed through it reduces the excess moisture in the leaf to about 60% to 70% to make it pliable.

Early factory withering loft

The process in known as withering; the time required for the leaf to reach the correct condition depends on temperature and humidity and will range from eighteen to twenty-four hours in different seasons and districts. During the wet season or in humid areas, the optimum conditions are obtained artificially by directing heated air through the loft with fans.

During withering, physical and chemical changes take place in the leaf. The chemical changes that take place during withering, materially increase the flavour and strength of the finished product. The process must be carefully watched, because over-withering can lead to poor quality tea.

When it has reached the correct degree of wither, the leaf is rolled, twisted and at the same time slowly broken up. In the early days of the tea industry, the leaf was rolled between coolies hands with a slightly concentric motion. In dealing with large crops this hand rolling was found to be too lengthy a process. The tea roller was then evolved to roll the leaf mechanically on somewhat similar lines to the old hand rolling system, one machine being capable of doing the work of sixty men in the old hand method.

Modern Trough Withering (Picture)

The chief process in rolling is to burst the leaf cells in which the sap is stored and this is accomplished by bruising or macerating the leaf without actually tearing it to shreds. The sap is thus liberated and coated over the surface of the leaf, so that, later when dried, the extracted matter remains coated on the surface of the leaf and can be easily dissolved by application of boiling water.

Air is allowed to come in contact as much as possible with the leaf during rolling, as the oxygen from the air oxidizes the leaf and turns the crude sap into palatable tea. As the leaf disintegrates, heat develops and this must be checked because excessive heat is detrimental to quality. Different rolling techniques are used for the different types of tea demanded by the trade.

Early Circular Roller

Rollers vary considerably in mechanical detail, but in principle they consist of a circular table with a hard surface on which brass or wooden battens such as the Lowmont or Salmond’s Battens are fitted.

The first tea roller imported into the country in 1876 was installed at Loolecondera and many others followed. A locally manufactured roller was installed at Hope Factory in 1878 by J.Walker & Company of Kandy. John Walker was the first engineer of repute to arrive in the island. He had started life as an engineering apprentice near Glasgow and after a varied and colourful life, he finally found his vocation as a designer of plantation machinery in Kandy, where he set up a construction business with his brother from which the Colombo firms of Walker Sons & Company any Walker & Greig are descended. The Walker Economic Tea Roller and the Colombo Pressure Dryer were originally introduced to Ceylon tea plantations in 1880.

Modern Circular Roller (Picture)

The leaf is fed in from above through an open cylinder and as this cylinder rotates the amount of pressure applied to the leaf against the table surface can be adjusted. The pressure applied from the top and the rolling action of the two sections of the rolling table forces the leaf over the grooves, twisting and rupturing the cells. The leaf changes colour during rolling, gradually changing form green to a tinge of copper colour and during damp weather any excess of moisture may be expelled from the leaf during the rolling stages.

The leaf particles (dhools) collected after rolling are more or less in the form of balls of twisted leaf, which require to be broken up and the fine leaf separated from the coarse.

These are spread out on a table or sifter in the form of a rolling cylinder slightly inclined to the horizontal , the walls of the cylinder are formed of wire mesh which are graded along the inclined length of the cylinder.

Early Tea Sifting Process (Picture)

The leaf is placed in one end of the cylinder and as the cylinder rotates gradually works done to the lower end, the finer leaf falls through the graded mesh forming the cylinder walls and is collected in separate grades. The large leaf that remains on top of the sifter is then returned to the roller for a second roll. The leaf that collects under the sifter contains a high proportion of small leaf particles and ‘tip’ which is essential for the production of quality tea.

The next stage is the process of fermentation; the rolled leaf is spread 10cm deep on a tiled ceramic floor for a predetermined period and as a result of their exposure to warm air, they start to ferment. This is a critical stage as over or under fermentation will result in poor quality tea. Fermentation brings about the changes necessary to make the tea palatable; the process can only take place when the cells of the tea leaf are properly ruptured. The liquor of under fermented tea will taste raw and green and that of over-fermented tea will come out soft.

Tea Leaf being placed in a Tea Dryer (Picture)

The degree of colour, the quality and the flavor can be varied by adjusting the period of fermentation, humidity and temperature. The period of fermentation may vary from twenty minutes to five hours.

During fermentation oxidization takes place between cell constituents and the ambient oxygen which gives the tea its colour, strength and brightness. As this chemical process takes place the colour of the leaf changes to a bright coppery colour. Once the correct level of fermentation has been reached the tea is passed through a dryer to arrest further fermentation and to give the tea its characteristic black appearance.

Furnace fired with Eucalyptus logs (Picture)

The first tea dryer in the country was erected at Windsor (Galamunduna) Factory in August 1882. Fast growing eucalyptus trees brought over from Australia were initially grown in the plantation for shade and when they reached maturity acted as wind breaks.

The trees were then felled and used for firing the factory boilers and any surplus timber was sold for making railway sleepers or firewood.

Marshall of Gainsborough, an establishment of international repute, also pioneered the installation of tea machinery in Ceylon, after completing a successful assignment in India. They joined hands with John Walker and Company and by invention and modification were able to provide tea rollers of various size and character to suit local requirements. The Jackson roller was one of their innovations. Davidson & Company in alliance with Mackwoods set up a workshop at Suduwella Mills for the production of tea machinery; their specialty was the Sirocco Dryer.

Modern Tea Sifter and Grader (Picture)

The fermented tea then goes into the firing chamber, where hot air will dry it and prevent any further chemical reaction from taking place. It emerges hard and black, ready for grading. The keeping qualities of tea depend on the temperature at which the tea has been fired. The technology of tea drying depends on many factors, the most important being the firing temperature, the volume of air, the load of tea in the dryer trays, the period of drying and the inlet and exhaust temperatures.

Grading is the last but one of the processes in tea manufacture and determines the value of the final product. The tea particles are separated into different shapes and sizes, traditionally defined by trade requirements, y sifting through a progressively finer series of meshes. There are two main grades – leaf grades and broken grades.

Eucalytus trees on
Tea Estate (Picture)

Leaf grade have larger and longer pieces of leaf giving lighter- coloured liquor. Broken grades consist of smaller pieces and normally give a darker liquor and stronger flavour. A third grade known as ‘dust’ containing the smallest particles of leaf is valued for its strength and quick infusion. Within these three grades are sub-divisions such as orange pekoes (leaf grades) and fannings (broken grades).

Where a large number of grades are produced by one factory, the grading process can be long and tedious; this is particularly so in low-grown areas, where it is not uncommon for factories to produce from twelve to fifteen grades.

The graded teas are finally weighed and packed into tea chests or paper sacks ready for dispatch to the broker’s store in Colombo. At the broker’s office they will be catalogued for the first available auction.

The early tea machinery companies certainly did their best to help planters in financial difficulties when the need to modernize their factories became urgent by offering them modern machinery at very attractive prices. Before long tea came to be cultivated at various elevations from over 2,100 metres to a few feet above sea level.

By 1883 Ceylon teas were freely discussed in Mincing Lane and soon came to be recognized as a product of exceptional good quality possessing the required amount of aroma and flavour, distinct from the light liquors of Chinese teas.

Auction of Tea in Mincing Lane (Picture)

1891 UK Census List

Name /Age in 1891/ Birthplace/ Relationship/ Census Place/ Census County
Browne, Keppel 17 Colombo, Ceylon Boarder Stratford on Avon Warwickshire
Brune, Louisa M 40 East Indies, Ceylon Lodger Appleshaw Hampshire
Bryde, Richard (Reverend) 47 Kandy, Ceylon Boarder St Marylebone London
Buchanan, James 70 Trincomalee, Ceylon Father Liverpool Lancashire
Buckley, Joseph H 31 Kandy, Ceylon Head Clerkenwell London
.........
Butler, Samuel E 40 Colombo, Ceylon Head Combe Hay Somerset
Byrde, Alice Maburly 12 Matara, Ceylon Boarder Daughter St Peter Bedfordshire
Byrde, Arthard Alfred Ernest 18 Colombo, Ceylon Brother St Leonard Sussex
Byrde, Evans Maburly 12 Matara, Ceylon Boarder Son St Peter Bedfordshire
Byrde, Lens May Arbuthor 15 Point de Galle, Ceylon Boarder Daughter St Peter Bedfordshire

In the 1891 Census, the Reverend Richard Byrde and his children are in England.

In the Kabristan Archives “Graveyards in Ceylon – Kandy region Vol IV” on page 48 the following entry reads:-

A burial plot was purchased by Mr.E.M.Byrde (Evans Maburly Byrde – son of Rev: Richard Augustus Byrde) 14th June 1937 for Mr.H.W.Byrde.(Henry Byrde ** his cousin).

Chapter 24 – The journey to Ootacamund.

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In 1886, Richard William Rowlands’ eldest son, James Henry Rowlands decided to leave home and travel to the Hill Station of Ootacumund in South India. It may have been the stories that he listened to from Tamil Coolies who had arrived from South India to work in the tea plantations or a desire to visit another country. He started work as a clerk and later met and married an Anglo-Indian girl named Grace Augusta Samuels; the wedding took place on 28th August 1889.

Their first child, Hilda Winifred Rowlands was born on 21st May 1890.

Richard William Rowlands could not attend the wedding, but when he was informed that Grace was pregnant he decided that he would visit the family to see his first grand-child and made plans to travel to Ootacumund.

Richard William Rowlands bade farewell to Charlotte and his sons and caught the train from Nanuoya to Colombo. From Colombo he may have sailed on the S.S.Bengal, a steam ship that at the time was sailing between Colombo and Madras. The journey would have been as described by the Commissioner of the Planters Association of Ceylon when he visited the town to see the Sanatorium and the Cinchona Gardens at Naduvatam.

From Madras Richard would have caught the up express train from Madras to Salem and after traveling all night arrived at Metapollium, the following morning at 4.40a.m; this was the terminus of the railway at the time and about 36 miles from Ooty. The mode of transport was by a curious vehicle called a “tonga” that was drawn by two horses or good sized ponies. It had two seats back to back, suspended on two wheels, and covered by an awning, that being very light was admirably adapted for hill traveling. The mail tonga started from the station, immediately on arrival of the train and the price of a return ticket was Rs 34. Just as day was breaking the “tonga” with its passengers rattled out of Metapollium Station; the ponies kept up a brisk trot to the foot of the hills, a distance of about four miles, where they changed steeds. This process of changing every three or four miles was kept up the whole way to Ooty and the distance of 36 miles up a steep incline was covered in five hours. This could not have been attained except by the constant changing of horses.

The ascent was made by zigzag road, on gradients the steepest of which was about 1 in 15; and for many miles pursued its torturous way along the steep mountainside, until they had gained an elevation of about 6,000 feet at Coonoor. At this point the vast mountain expanse of mountain scenery covered with forest timber presents a view indescribably wild and grand. At the top of the pass the road skirted two or three estates under European management; and near the road itself Richard would have seen some fairly cultivated coffee; the trees would have been healthy and vigorous and kept in good order and reminded him of the days when the bushes flourished in Ceylon. All the way from Metapollium to Coonoor the country was steeper, more broken and rugged than anything he had seen in Ceylon and knowing the difficulties they had encounted on the way there, were surprised to be advised that the Government was bringing the railway from Metapollium to Ooty via Coonoor; in fact the cutting had already been commenced and large gangs of coolies were at work as they passed through. They were told that the route which the railway would take was the only passable track over the mountains, the sides of which when not broken up by immense boulders were covered by many varieties of forest trees, besides a profusion of flowering shrubs. The line would stop at Coonoor for the present as this town was a favorite hill station much frequented by invalids, as the cold was not nearly so severe or trying as Ooty.

After five hours from the terminus at Metapollium they reached Ootacmund with a sound appetite engendered by the keen mountain air and was made welcome at the house of James and Grace.

Ootacmund was prettily situated on an elevated piece of land at the extreme end of a grassy plateau and was well protected from the prevailing winds. It was about 8,000 feet above sea level and had a salubrious and most delightful climate with an annual average rainfall of 45 inches. It was the comparatively dry atmosphere combined with the cool and bracing air that made Ooty so healthy and invigorating for those weakened by a long stay on the plains. During the winter months the frost is often sharp, causing great damage to delicate flowers and plants that were not frost tolerant.

The town was of considerable size and both pleasant and interesting and divided into an upper and lower town. The upper town consisted of fashionable quarters and extended for fully two miles along the slope of a hill and was covered with beautiful and in amny cases extensive bungalows, surrounded with park-like and well laid out grounds and lawns. The lower town was also of considerable size and consisted of long streets with bazaars, shops and abodes of the natives and hangers-on of the European community; and here was the Police Station and beyond the race-course and tennis courts. The public gardens were a most agreeable resort; they were well cared for and laid out prettily and with taste and contained many rare and interesting plants from all quarters of the globe. They appeared to be singularly adapted by nature for charming scenes and this had been cleverly taken advantage of and augmented by art and the delightful results were probably heightened by the beautiful views afforded all around over mountains, hill and dale, with bungalows peeping out here and there from amidst the forest of acacias and gum trees.
Ooty was adorned with several fine public buildings, amongst them being the Legislative and Executive Council Chambers, the Courts of Justice, the Church and the Public Library. Surrounding the Sanatorium were large plantations of blue gums, the property of the Government.

At this time James was working as a clerk and Richard was glad that he made the journey to visit the family and his first grand-child.

Richard William Rowlands died in 1891 at the age of 59 and his grave cannot be found in Ceylon. Could it be that he went to England after visiting his son and family in India and died at sea.

The page below listing people who died at sea in 1891 shows that a Wiiliam Rowlands, aged 59 died on the "Kate Sancton".

IS THIS THE ANSWER TO THIS MYSTERY?.

Chapter 25 – Rubber and Coconut.

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The first recorded evidence of the existence of a rubber producing tree was when Christopher Columbus made his voyage to the Americas in 1493-1496 and observed the inhabitants of Haiti playing with balls of gum-like substance. Many years later in 1872, it was discovered that this gum from the West Indies could be utilized for rubbing out pencil marks on paper and hence the name India Rubber came into common usage. The process of vulcanization which converted rubber from a substance of little importance to one of the world’s most important products was discovered in 1842 by Charles Goodyear, but the annual consumption remained negligible until the year 1900 when the advent of motor cars created a demand for rubber.

The story of the collection of the Hevea Braziliensis seeds in the Amazon Valley and their transport down that great river by Sir Henry Wickham was a feat in itself. Sir Henry’s services to tropical agriculture were recognized in 1911 when the Planters’ Association of Ceylon took the initiative and having approached the Malayan Planters’ Association and the Rubber Growers’ Association, arranged for a presentation to Sir Henry at a banquet organized by the International Rubber and Allied Traders’ Exhibition on the 7th July 1911. The presentation took the form of a purse of 1,000 guineas, an Annuity and a Testimonial setting forth the natures of Sir Henry’s services.

Sir Henry Wickham

During the period of transition of coffee to tea, experiments in the cultivation of another product, Rubber were proceeding. Early experiments had proved that various types of rubber yielding trees flourished in Ceylon, but the industry can be said to have had its birth in 1876 when 1,919 plants of Hevea Braziliensis - the native Rubber tree of the Amazon Valley – were received in good condition at the Heneratgoda Botanical Gardens from Kew in England. It was from these mother trees that the gigantic Rubber Plantation Industry in the Eastern Hemisphere sprang and the development of the Industry in Ceylon. The reference to the fact that the first plants of Hevea Braziliensis came to Ceylon from Kew recalls that there was a Botanical Garden of that name in Ceylon. The first garden was established at Peliyagoda in 1799 but this was transferred to Slave Island in Colombo, in 1810 and named “Kew”.

Rubber Tapping

Its existence is recalled today by the names of various thoroughfares un that area that used to be or are still called Kew Road, Kew Lane, Kew Passage and Kew Patch. The Botanical Gardens were moved to Kalutara in 1813 and eventually transferred to their present site at Peradeniya in 1821.

The trees planted in the Heneratgoda Botanical Gardens in 1876 first flowered in 1881, in which year the first experiments in tapping were commenced. The plantation was thinned out in 1882 and from the 260 seedlings raised the following year and distributed in Ceylon, the first spread of commercial rubber planting began.

To 1890, the acerage under Rubber was confined to a mere 678 acres and the main interest was the planting of tea – the new staple. The trees from Heneratgoda were thinned out periodically and by 1887 there were 457 good trees standing which provided the seed for further planting. In 1890, the Forest Department opened a plantation at Edangoda and by 1893 some 90,000 seeds were distributed for planting and similar numbers were sold in succeeding years at a price of approximately 10 Rupees per thousand.

Interior of Rubber Factory

Following the first commercial planting in 1883, further areas were planted at a more moderate pace until, by 1904, 25,000 acres were under cultivation. Thirty four tons of Rubber were exported that year. Rubber planting thereafter increased very rapidly. By 1906, 100,000 acres had been planted and this figure was increased to 180,000 acres in 1908 and 203,910 acres by 1910. The 300,000 acre mark was topped in 1920; the acreage exceeded 400,000 in 1925 and three years later in 1928 had been increased to 534,000 acres.

Rubber Preparation

The beginning of the century, 1900 found the Empire in the throes of a war with the South African Boer Republics. Ever ready to go the aid of the Mother Country in times of peril, members of the planting community formed the Ceylon Contingent of Mounted Infantry, which left the shores of Ceylon for South Africa in 1900, where they were known popularly as “The Dandy Horsemen of Ceylon”. As a direct result of the patriotic sentiments stirred up by the operations in South Africa, The Ceylon Planters’ Rifle Corp” was embodied. They too provided a contingent for South Africa and their record of service in that, and in the two world wars, is second to none.

In Ceylon, the end of the twentieth century saw a flurry of activity. 21 March 1898 saw the unveiling of a portrait of the Late A.M.Ferguson, painted by Mr Trevor Haddon and presented by members of the Ferguson family to be hung in the “Ferguson Memorial Hall”. The foundation stone of the North-West Breakwater was laid without ceremony on 4 April 1898 as was the foundation stone of the new Galle Face Church by the Bishop of Colombo on 14 June.

Working Rubber Crepe

At year end, the Governor promised appointment of a Commission of Inquiry into the incidence of Taxation and the Ocean Penny Postage was inaugurated on 25 December. The rate of postage between Ceylon and the United Kingdom being fixed at 6 cents per half ounce.

In January 1899, the De Soysa Bacteriological institute was erected. The formal opening of the new electric tramways by the Mayor and Municipal Councillors making a tour of the streets in the cars took place on 12 January.

The Boer War and the advent of the motor vehicle with pneumatic tyres made of rubber came at an opportune time for an entrepreneur.