When it was known as the Harley Street of Ceylon

The Homes in Ward Place in its early days,

by Hugh Karunanayake, Dr Srilal Fernando, and Avinder Paul

Ward Place in the heart of Cinnamon Gardens is a roadway linking the epi centre of the Colombo Municipality with the eastern area of metropolitan Colombo. Two centuries ago, there was no roadway in the area, which was part of cinnamon plantations established during the Dutch period of occupation of the maritime areas of Ceylon. When a road to the area was first built in the nineteenth century it was named Borella Road, later to be named Ward Place.

Arunachalam Ponnambalam was a man of foresight and great acumen. Originating from the village of Manipay in the north of the island, he sought opportunities for work in Colombo during early British times and won the confidence of British Governors who appointed him the Chief cashier of the Colombo Kachcheri which was the key government instrument in the administration of the dominion of Ceylon. The Kachcheri together with the early Legislative Councils were the local institutions that set the pace for the administration of the colony. Land throughout the country was made available by the new rulers of the island at ome to five shillings per acre to pioneer British settlers, and also to a few natives who had won the favour of the Government.

Arunachalam Ponnambalam was one of the latter, and by the mid 1850s the owner of two cinnamon estates, Rajagiriya, and Borella. While Rajagiriya Estate was sold after some years, to Mrs Cornelia Obeyesekera whose son Donald established a township still known as Obeyesekera Town, Borella Estate disintegrated into building blocks for residential housing. Ward Place of today represents a part of the original Borella Estate.

Ward Place, named after British Governor Sir Henry Ward, became an elite residential area not long after the Ceylon Medical College was established in the adjoining Regent Street in 1870 with Dr Edwin Lawson Koch as its first Principal. This was followed two decades later by the Victoria Memorial Eye Hospital built through the munificence of the legendary 19 Century philanthropist Sir Charles Henry de Soysa. Another landmark event in the progress towards enhanced healthcare was the establishment of the De Soysa Lying-in-Home (the LIH) on December 13th, 1879. The hospital owes its beginning to a philanthropic gesture by Sir Charles Henry de Soysa.. He was deeply touched by the plight of women of poor socio-economic status who were deprived of the facility for safe care in a hospital during childbirth. He proceeded to establish a hospital by personal donation of property and funds for their care, the De Soysa Lying-in-Home which is the second oldest maternity home in Asia.

Since then it has played the lead role in providing for all aspects of healthcare for women and in the training of staff in all grades for this field of work. During the initial years, maternity services was the main thrust of activities at De Soysa Lying-in-Home. At its commencement it consisted of 22 beds and provided for 52 births during its first year. A decade later the hospital was providing for 425 births annually then on to 1051 in 1909 and 2000 in 1921. The bed strength had now increased to 100. In later years it provided care for over 14,000 maternity cases annually, most of which are of a high-risk nature. Today it is a Teaching Hospital.

The Victoria Memorial Eye Hospital stands on a property formerly named Mango Lodge which was said to have been a hunting cabin during the time of the Dutch occupation. The two institutions viz the General Hospital and the Eye Hospital served as the pioneer medical institutions of the country, and attracted most of the country’s medical specialists for service there. Consequently, Ward Place became the most sought after location for residence for medical specialists and by the beginning of the 20th Century was the most popular residential location for leading medical specialists., and regarded as the Harley Street of Colombo.

The General Hospital (as it was then known) was established during Sir Henry Ward’s governorship (1855-1860), with 3,000 pounds sterling being earmarked for the project. Until then, government policy had been to contribute to locally operated charitable health organisations. However, after the establishment of the General Hospital, this policy was abandoned. Furthermore, the General Hospital also succeeded the Pettah Hospital, since the latter’s capacity to treat patients was very low.

Accordingly, the General Hospital was opened in Longden Place in 1864, under the inaugural administration of Civil Medical Officer Dr Parsley .It was later moved to Kynsey Road. named after its first Medical Superintendent, Dr WR Kynsey. The location of the General Hospital added to the demand for specialist medical services, which in turn created a soaring demand for residential accommodation to which Ward Place was considered the prime locale.

Perhaps the best known resident of Ward Place was Former President JR Jayewardene, who lived in a house named “Braemar” at 66, Ward Place. The property was originally owned by his father-in-law, Leonard Rupesinghe whose only child, Elina, was married to JR. It is on record that he bought the property from a previous owner, most probably a Scotsman, who had bestowed the name Braemar on it. C Brooke Elliott the lawyer lived there as a tenant, when he published his book “Real Ceylon ” in 1938. Since then the original house had been demolished by Rupesinghe, and by the Jayewardenes who built a modern residence for themselves, retaining the old name Braemar. The house has since been ascribed to the Inland Revenue Department to offset income taxes, but is being managed by the JR Jayewardene Cultural Centre.

Another famous resident of Ward Place was Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, the national leader of the early Twentieth Century. His stately home named Sukasthan was demolished several decades ago to give way to the construction of many large homes on the property which now have the address Sukasthan Gardens. It could be speculated that Sir Ponnambalam built his home on land inherited from his father Arunachalam Ponnambalam from the Borella Estate.

The list of names of residents of Ward Place in the early 20th century would read as a list of the most eminent personae of the medical profession in Ceylon of the time. Names such as Dr Simon de Melho Aserappah, his son-in-law, Dr SC Paul, the latter’s son Dr Milroy Paul, possibly the only holder of the Master of Surgery qualification from Ceylon. There was the reputed eye surgeon Sir Arthur M de Silva, gynaecologist Dr PR Thiagarajah, Dr Percy Kulasinghe, Dr SL Navaratnam, Dr Jackie de Silva, Dr DP Billimoria, Dr W Balendra, Dr AC Arulpragasam, Dr A Sinnatamby, and Dr LAP Britto Babapulle are names that readily come to mind, and were household names of mid Twentieth Century Ceylon. There would of course be many others.

The residents of Ward Place were the elite of Colombo’s society and the medical practitioners living there commanded the biggest practices and were considered as the crème de la crème of medical specialists in the country, with a few exceptions of course.

At the intersection of Ward Place with Alexandra Place stood the two storied home of Dr Alles on a 120 perch block of land. It was for many years subsequently leased by the government of the day as the head office of the Department for the Registration of Motor Vehicles. The Alles property was next to the original home of Cargills Pharmacy which later moved to the opposite end of the De Soysa Circus .For the past few decades It was operating as a retail fashion centre named ODEL , a concept new to the country and successfully owned and managed by Ms Otara Chandiram, herself a granddaughter of two eminent medical personalities of the past, ENT surgeon Dr HCP Gunawardene, and Cardiologist/Radiologist Dr HO Gunawardene. Having disposed of this successful venture, Otara is now preoccupied with animal welfare (in an honorary capacity), a subject close to her heart.

(This originally appeared in the Ceylankan)

To be continued next week