HIGHLIGHTED Nostalgia OF THE WEEK

The Newspaper Archives features a collection of news items, articles and advertisements extracted from newspapers in the UK and Australia. Dating back to 1843, this collection provides a great insight into the 'thinking of the day' and is an excellent supplementary resource for enthusiasts and researchers on the history of 'Ceylon' and its plantations. The wide-ranging topics include crop production statistics, feature articles, letters to editors, obituaries, reports on crime and sports, amongst others. The advertisements for Ceylon Tea date back to the 1880s and make for interesting reading, with the ads from the Australian Women's Weekly of the 1960s, being particularly sure to spill a few 'cuppas'!

In 1770, Lord North repealed four of the five Townshend Duties but retained the 3d tax on tea. The Tea Act of 1773 was intended to rescue the East India Company from its financial problems and provided that the Company might export tea directly to the American colonies and appoint its own agents to sell it. Before this legislation, the Company had been required to sell its tea at auction in London to wholesalers and retailers; now it entered the retail business itself.

0ur family has its roots in the era of British colonialism. This personal story attempts to tell how a Tytler four generations ago and a Tribe three generations ago, who came from Scotland and England to Sri Lanka ( then Ceylon) lured by the prospects of coffee and tea planting, stayed to call that lovely island 'home'. My story shows how times have changed and our family, having made its distinctive contribution to Sri Lanka's history and economic development, moved on. In our case, the move was made to Australia. There are descendants of Robert Boyd Tytler, John Campbell Tribe and their like, scattered around the world today who share our Sri Lankan background. They might wish to know where their ancestors came from, and what life had been like in the years before their own parents and grandparents decided to emigrate to other lands and other ways of life.

The first Shipment of Ceylon Tea, a consignment of 23lb (10kg) arrived in London for trade

Jewish brothers born in Frankfurt, Germany, Maurice Worms was arguably the first person to introduce tea to Ceylon with samplings from China being experimented with in 1841. However, due to high production costs and labour issues, and with coffee thriving at the time, tea failed to gain a foot-hold. Nonetheless, the Worms brothers went on to establish one of the largest coffee, and later tea plantation proprietorships in the island with a portfolio of more than 2,000 acres in coffee and tea, and 6,000 acres of jungle. The brothers were famed for their efficiency and competency and were held up as the role models of the plantation industry. The brothers were also famous for their philanthropy across the island.

Edward Barnes was a British Army Officer who was the Acting Governor of Ceylon from 1820 to 1821, and the appointed Governor from 1824 to 1831. The success of the island’s planting enterprise is attributed to Barnes who constructed the network of roads linking the hill country to the coast. A vital prerequisite for the industry to develop. Notwithstanding his role as Governor of Ceylon, Barnes took a personal interest in the coffee industry, and it was he who identified the hill districts as being more suitable for coffee growing than the low country areas. Barnes, who had his own coffee plantation, was also responsible for many political decisions that supported and promoted the coffee industry, from tax exemptions, to land grants. Barnes was also the first to initiate development in the virgin forests of Nuwara Eliya, and in 1929, it was established as a health resort and a recuperating station for troops. Barnes, also constructed a Governor’s Residence in Nuwara Eliya, which was named Barne’s Hall. This, today, after significant improvements and expansions over the decades, is now the famous Grand Hotel of Nuwara Eliya.

Ceylon Tea, that most famous brand and well-known ‘cuppa’, celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. It has been a rich and rewarding history and its importance and relevance to Sri Lanka remains very much so to this day. It has of course been a colossal journey with many peaks and troughs along the way, not dissimilar to the landscape of the tea fields of Sri Lanka.

As will be shown now, the great pioneer of tea was James Taylor, planter from 1852 to 1892, as Superintendent of Loolecondera, in Hewaheta. In one respect, James Taylor stands out as an exception to the general rule, in that he was never a proprietor. James Taylor was born at Mosspark, Monboddo, Kincardineshire, Scotland in 1835.

Robert Tytler, regarded as the “Father of Ceylon Planters”, was the first to cultivate cocoa (cacao) in Ceylon. Tytler had carried out extensive work on Jamaica’s coffee plantation processes in the mid-1830s, and then introduced the West Indian system of cultivation to Ceylon’s coffee plantations, with great success.