Features
Most help to colonial Ceylon from Christian Missionaries
Two weeks ago I wrote in this column about six Britishers
Googled and drew next to nothing. Much more productively I asked a historian and an ex top government officer with UN experience who is a source of facts on local history. They said there were no outstanding persons who were traitorous to colonial rule. But they both stated that the country needed to be grateful to some of the Commissions that the British rulers dispatched to our land from the Colonial Office in London.
It would be great if readers could add to the subject by writing about British colonial officers who helped the country. Leonard Woolf got disgruntled with Brit rule much after he served as Civil Servant in Ceylon in the first decade of the 20th century. First bit of information I ferreted out was that one powerful sympathizer was Lord Louis Mountbatten who was here during the latter stages of WW II as SEAC Commander. “His dispatches and a telegram to the colonial office supporting independence for Ceylon have been cited by historians as having helped the Senanayake government to secure the independence of the country.”
One of the two I asked questions from said that the Donoughmore Commission which was responsible for the creation of the Donoughmore Constitution – 1931 to 1947 – helped the country much to get out of the yoke of British rule. The Commission was led by Rt. Hon. the Earl of Donoughmore, PC, (not much more available on him in Internet) and had four British parliamentarians appointed by Sydney Webb, the first Labour Secretary of State for the Colonies.
“Their task was to draft a new constitution that would satisfy the aspirations of all groups within the Island, including British plantation owners, but also enable Ceylon to take its place as a partner in the socialist British empire that Webb envisioned. In 1931 there were approximately 12% Ceylonese Tamils, 12% Indian Tamils,65% Sinhalese and 3% Ceylon Moors, The British government had introduced a form of communal representation with a strong Tamil representation, out of proportion to the Tamil community. The Sinhalese were divided into the up-country and low-country groups.”
The Donoughmore Commissioners arrived in Ceylon in 1927, held 34 sittings. Their most valued recommendation was granting of suffrage to all women aged 21 and above. This was at a time when British suffragettes were still fighting to have the voting age lowered from 28. This granting of the right to vote to all women was not received favourably by all Ceylonese; conservative Tamils not wanting women of the non-Vellala castes being included. This objection was eliminated.
Also, “having noted that the island was riven by power struggles between competing ethnic groups, it devised a system of executive committees that would control all government departments. It rejected the principle of communal representation. The Sinhala conservatives were skeptical and they worked to replace DCs by a cabinet model. This happened in 1947 when the Soulbury Constitution replaced the earlier constitution which ushered independence the following year.”
Hence we see that the Donoughmore Commission helped the country with universal suffrage and education being insisted upon.
Missionaries as benefactors
A conclusion reached by both my informants was that Ceylon was helped most by the missionaries who arrived in the island. Many of them did not come merely to convert the people to their different Christian denominations. When they stayed for some time, they would have been struck by the civility of the people and their cultural level. Hence no treating us as natives to be civilized and no patronage by most of them and no inducing restrictions by insisting on Mother Hubbard dress for women.
Their principal benefit to the people was education in English and more by example than preaching, inculcating certain positives of western behavior. They also encouraged wider access to education whether in English or the native languages. I well remember there was an officer who went around the villages checking on children’s attendance in schools – iskola opisara; compulsory education up to the age of 14 was introduced in soon before and after independence.
None of the missionaries tried changing the culture of the country, whether Tamil or Sinhalese; most appreciated it and positively encouraged its retention in the schools they headed. One instance I clearly remember is of Miss Ruth Allen, Irish Principal – the last of them that Girls’ High School, Kandy, had before the post went to a local educationist – showing her preference for cultural norms of then.
She was to select a little girl to hand over the bouquet to the wife of the Chief Guest at the annual Prize Day. She selected a little one dressed in Kandyan half sari from many who were in elaborate white dresses. Miss Allen would visit homes of her pupils and I know she approved of Mother’s conservative upbringing of my elder sisters, dressed in half sari to school.
Both of those I consulted brought forward an outstanding missionary who influenced the students and teachers of Richmond College, Galle – Rev W J T Small – longest serving Headmaster and devoted to the College and the community. Born 1883 in Boston, Lincolnshire, England, he joined the Methodist Mission after graduation from Cambridge. He was appointed Head of Richmond in 1906 and taught science, math, Christianity. He was a sportsman and disciplinarian and lived very simple.
He served the school till 1922 and then till 1953 in other countries. He devoted much time for the welfare of the community he and the school were within. His love of this adopted home was so strong that he returned in 1956 and lived on Richmond Hill till his death on December 28, 1978, aged 95. He was buried in the Dadalla Cemetery.
Another British missionary who came over was Walter Stanley Senior (1876 – 1938), English scholar, graduate of Balliol College, Oxford University; poet and member of the Church Missionary Society. He was recruited to the tutorial staff of Trinity College in 1906. He was soon appointed Vice Principal and served in that capacity for a decade. Popularly known as the Bard of Lanka, his poems are still popular, most of them in praise of Ceylon.
An interesting tidbit I read was that he officiated at the marriage of George E de Silva to Agnes Nell in St Paul’s Church, Kandy, in 1909. Later he was appointed Registrar of University College, Colombo, and lecturer in Classics. Never of robust health, he returned for a holiday in England 1936., and died two years later.
A letter to a friend has him writing his wish: “The idea has come to me that I should like my ashes – for I contemplate cremation rather than burial – to be interred in St Andrew’s Churchyard, Haputale.” This was fulfilled. “His gravestone is a testament to his life, bearing the plain legend He loved Ceylon preceded by the opening lines of his poem “Lanka from Piduruthalgala”
‘Here I stand in spirit,/ As in body once I stood, long years ago,
In love with all the land./ This peerless land of beauty’s plentitude.
I end by quoting familiar lines of his best known, much admired The Call of Lanka
I climbed o’er the crags of Lanka
And gazed on her golden sea,
And out from her ancient places
Her soul came forth to me….
Senior praises Lanka’s ancient sites and places and ends thus:
“But most shall he sing of Lanka
In the brave new days that come,
When the races all are blended
And the voice of strife is dumb”
What a conclusion of hope; so willfully torn to shreds by our own people.