Musings

The ‘happy’ days: Of the young colony of Ceylon

by Padma Edirisinghe

They were happy days but as usual only for those at the top. The ‘Middle’ enjoyed middling days and the poor, trying days. The most fortunately placed were the British Governors and their coteries.The Governor had a palace right in the middle of the city and kings’ pavilions in the main sub cities and also country houses. When night came on there were clubs in plenty and even the conference halls turned to clubs when the day’s work was over. A clever network of roads run by Edward Barnes made travelling sleek all over the island and horses began to run in Nuwara Eliya after the very same person saw to it that it was a mini-European city.

The 1833 Colebrooke Commission had seen to the welfare of education, mostly of higher education where the students were offspring of affluent families who ended up by being carbon copies of the masters. The very lucky of them entered Universities in England. Random repairs to the Parish system of education threw a sop to the poor. But a proposal that all should be given an education in English, was not carried out due to lack of staff. This led to a wide gap in education that is still running.

One rebellion however had cropped up and had been suppressed giving the country its first lot of national heroes fighting against foreign invaders from the West. Now almost everything seemed to be settled but some very important facets were lacking as internal communication. Communication-wise the country was in very poor conditions. But Governor Horton who was entrusted with the task of carrying our Colebrooke reforms came here with many dreams and illusions. In a letter that he received before coming here, the island is described as, ‘one of the happiest and loveliest spots in the universe’.

Horton said to be a man of cultivated tastes now, once come over decided to fill some noteworthy gaps. That was a newspaper. We would come to that later and stop at his wife, lady Horton said to be a beauty.

It was of her, that Byron had written the lines,
“She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that is best of dark and light
Meet in her aspect and her eyes”

Though all the governors had not been accompanied by their wives with a good number of bachelors too, Horton’s wife had come and walked in beauty here for five years. “However, she is mentioned in major news only when she left the island in the Tigris”.

In the meantime Horton performed many a happy task as pioneering the newspaper world of Lanka or Ceylon. Wasn’t there no news disseminators till then? Why not. The Govt. Gazette was there, a poor specimen that doled out extracts from Indian journals for want of news. Then Horton remembered today by Horton Place, began the Colombo Journal, printed by George Lee. The Governor himself contributed much signing by a pen name, Timon or Liber.

The merchants of Colombo now began ‘The Observer & Commercial advertiser’ that began attacking the Governor. ‘The Ceylon chronicle’ then appeared to counter attack it. Indeed they were happy and exciting days, but only for the very rich and the very literate, Horton himself an epitome of it all. To add to the happiness the pearl fisheries gave the highest profits ,105, 791 pounds.

The Calcutta Englishman 1837 carries this eulogy to Colombo society.

“ … Much more approaching to the English in style than that of Calcutta. … possessing much hospitality”

Really a very good imitator.

The Governor and his wife further earn mention and praise for bonding with conciliatory measures, the different segments of a small society.

Those were really happy days though sparks were tuning a light russet in the backwoods for a flare up of the 1848 rebellion that occurred in the subsequent regimes. Horton could not foresee all that for he was a very optimistic poet. Very literary minded the sent invitations for meetings and even rejections via verses.

Here is a sample.

‘My dear Charles, I much lament
Considering your kind intent, That deep reflection bids me say

With much regret, alas and nay
You quite forget I have the chair
The poor are my special Care.’

That is rejecting an invitation in by the Chief Justice, Sir Charles Marshall.

He is said to be absent minded too as in the scuffle with the Merchants. He wrote to the Undersecretary questioning, “Who the deuce they think they are ?”

And posted it to the merchants themselves!

The Sinhala newspapers made their debut a few decades after and it carried snippets to show that the poor, that Wilmot did not forget still eked out their miserable lives .

Yet on the surface they were GOOD TIMES where ‘The lady walked in beauty’.