The Mystery, the Memory, the Magic: commemorative souvenir of Bishop’s College, Colombo

My choice of subject today: a girls’ school celebrating 150 years of service to education and women in this country, is deliberate. This Sundayfollows International Women’s Day, which, marked annually on March 8, draws attention to women and their condition worldwide. One major advantage that levered women to seek gender equality and fairness was education: access to it and the range open to them moving from primary and secondary schooling to tertiary education and the highest achievable academic qualification in every sphere. Schools like Bishop’s College (BC) contributed much to the elevation of women in Sri Lanka as many other Christian Missionary, Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu schools did. Government schools too helped in educating and creating awareness in smaller towns and rural areas.

The UN marking the first International Women’s Day in 1975 was the highest boost given women’s equality. “Equal rights, equal opportunities, equal power” are demnded, yet the widely held opinion is that “the word is deeply unequal.”

The Commemorative Tome

This article is about the huge and wonderful coffee table book published to celebrate 150 years of Bishop’s College, tracing its history, including messages from important persons and so much more about events, achievements and achievers, teachers, comments and pictures aplenty. As you open the book, the first photograph is a delightful double page of girls, barefoot or in sports shoes, cheering at a sports event. So apt, so endearing.

Rt Rev Dushantha Rodrigo, Bishop of Colombo and Chairman, BC Board of Governors, heads the Foreword of messages with: “The unique history of Bishop’s College and its impact on the educational landscape of Sri Lanka testifies to the position it occupies as a school producing women of very high caliber and integrity, who serve in different walks of life, worldwide.” PM Dr Harini Amarasuriya, past pupil – Class of 1989 – ends her message with: “This is what I would like to see in the future of BC – young women who don’t just follow a set path, but those who challenge the world and are a force for change and a force for good.” As she is.

I remember being very pleasantly surprised when at a party given teachers by a group of past pupils as they are wont to do, I found two very young women, dressed casually, joining my groups of friends. They were Principal Chemali Goonetileke Herath and Vice Principal Chrishnika Galbadage.

Conversing happily, I found Ms Herath was the granddaughter of a much respected couple in Kandy of our young days – Harry and Olive Goonetilake – Olive of the hundred Kashmir saris! Ms Herath starts her message with “Blessed and benevolent! Bishop’s College at 150!” She ends with the wish: “May we all relish the tremendous privilege of being part of the unique Bishopian story. Let our BC spirit be reignited and let us continue our work to ensure that our school remains a place where we can grow in charity, scholarship and unbounded spirit for the next 150 years and beyond.” Amen, I respond.

Messages are also included from Shermila Antony Perera, Chairperson, 150^th Anniversary Commemorative Committee; Sunella Dissanayeke Mohotti, immediate Past President, PPA, 2022/24; Hasnah Mohideen, President PPA, 2024/2026 and Ramola Sivasunderam and Savithri Wjesekera, Co –Chairs of the Book Committee.

Personal note

I bring in the personal here. I savoured the unique Bishopian spirit and of course the discipline and giving to students the best we could impart when I joined the teaching staff of BC in 1970. I was teaching at a Buddhist girls school in Colombo 7 and was privileged with leave granted whenever I requested, since I was the only teacher to volunteer to escort the senior school choir to render Jayamangala Gatha at events during Mrs B’s 1960 – 65 premiership. Apart from this favourable treatment I disliked, educational short cuts were taken and a teacher who became pregnant almost every year was asked to leave. I wanted to teach in a proper school so applied to Bishop’s which was two sessions against the school I was in being over at 1.30 pm. Discipline was strict under Principal Amabelle Jayasuriya, softened by the lovely charm of Vice Principal Brenda Jayasinghe. It was a spell of seven year’s teaching I look back on: gratified that I really taught, was appreciated by the kids who I could never keep silent, and was a member of a truly warm gathering of administrators, teachers and delightful young ones.

Back to the Book

Its title: The Mystery, the Memory, the Magic 1875 – 2025/ The Enduring Story of Bishops’ College is evocative and very true. There is mystery and magic as we go back 150 years to Bishop Chapman and his wife realizing their dream of starting a school for girls in Colombo. Other bishops followed and foreign nuns – British Sisters of St Margaret – at the beginning; later local educators and managers. And of course memories in thousands, nay millions of minds, a few men included.

Book cover

In the title page of the Prologue, golden with purple lettering, Editor Savithri Rodrigo sums up the enormity of the task undertaken to indite (rare word for compose) and document the history of the school. “The task of researching a history spanning one and a half centuries and weaving it all into an absorbing story is not a small one. But when I took on this assignment, I had no idea just how Herculean it would turn out to be!”

It was in November 2023 that the Past Pupils Association of BC mooted the idea and very fortuitously engaged Savithri Rodrigo, a Bishopian herself, to undertake the tremendous task, which though Herculean as she said, would have given pleasure and the camaraderie of teams to work with: the deeply dedicated Book Committee headed by Co-Chairs Ramola Sivasundaram and Savithri Wijesekera. One team was the Research Team, another “who proved to be both well-informed and indefatigable” as Savithri notes.

The 512 paged, large sized book is judiciously and cleverly sectioned off into 21 Chapters. Here within the evocative titles is presented the mystery, magic and memories of events, persons, achievers and so much more. I name the chapters and leave you to deduce/imagine subject matter dealt with. I apologize for that mundane, prosaic term ‘subject matter’, but there it is.

Chapter titles proceed thus: Whispers from the Archives; In the Beginning; The Sisters that came to be; Moving into the 20^th Century; The Neighbourhood; The Footprint (The long and sometimes hazardous BC journey including progress and expansion in terms of educational excellence and cultural values); Changing Times; From Closed to Open and Trials in between;

Moving forward; The Enthusiasts; The Legends (Heroes come and go, but legends are forever. BC has had both);The Pioneers; High Achievers; Making a Mark; The Boys (!); Raising the Curtain (BC women in literature, movement, communication); Sporty Sports; Teacher, Mentor, Friend; Our stories (of school days: glad, sad, nostalgic); Shaping Generations; A Vision for Purple & Gold. The vast spectrum of facts, opinions, memories, comment can be gauged. Added to this are the hundreds of photographs, which alone trace the history of the school.

A couple of hiccups and bumps in the school’s progress are included. I quote one. Ruki Attygalle (Class of 1956) recalls her grandmother, Ellen Attygalle, being smacked for breaking the rule forbidding the use of the vernacular in school premises. She was caught whispering to a friend in Sinhala. That was her crime deserving a ruler shot. What did Ellen do? Snatched the ruler and smacked the Brit nun. “She was made to apologize and beg forgiveness which she did. However, she made it clear she was not sorry nor apologetic for speaking in her mother tongue.”

Savithri Rodrigo and her editorial team are hugely congratulated for an enormous undertaking well done. Others connected too need to be thanked. The commemorative book is a delightful potpourri; interesting assortment of historical and other facts, anecdotes, character sketches, memories; all enhanced with old, fairly new and current photographs, laid out intelligently and elegantly.

Available on sale at the PPA Office adjacent to the BC Auditorium, priced at Rs 20,000, it is a treasure to be possessed, perused or read for many a day and photographs enjoyed.