Rev.
Charles Winter's great grandfather James Winter, bricklayer of Walworth came
from a family which was involved in the building trade. He was listed in Pigot's
Directory of 1827 as a bricklayer of 11 Bolingbroke Row, Walworth and in the
same Directory in 1838 as resident at 10, Montpellier Street (now Pelier
Street), Walworth Road. His son George of Walworth was recorded as a shareholder
of the ship "Vitoria", James was buried a St. Peter's Walworth
where some of his children were baptised and married.
According
to Dorothea Winter's letter, George Winter and his wife Sarah Cresse were given
money by her father David Cresse with which they bought a store in Cape Town,
South Africa (probably in the Huguenot colony) from where they traded with
Mozambique and the Far East. The British government also gave grants to
emigrants to South Africa.
There
is a family legend that George Winter taught the men of Galle the art of
tortoise-shell work which he learned in China (they still wore these combs in
the 20th century) and that Sarah taught the women how to make lace on
pin-boards. George Winter was called a merchant of Newington on the baptismal of
his eldest daughter at Tottenham and brought over two Church Missionary Society
clergymen Robert Mayor and Benjamin Ward to Ceylon on his ship. Mayor went to
Baddegama and Ward to Mannar on 15.12.1817.
When visiting Robert Mayor at
Christchurch, Baddegama (consecrated by Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta)
George Winter noticed that the climate was suitable for sugar planting. He
referred to his sugar project in a letter to the Colebrooke Cameron Commission
after the Kandyan Rebellion.
George worked as a supercargo or agent
for the East India Company in 1823 on the "Madras (Clarke was
Master). They became business partners and went bankrupt in 1825. ("Tombstones
& Monuments in Ceylon" - J. Penryn Lewis, India Records Office
Library).
In 1825 He settled at Cinnamon Gardens,
Colombo which was half a mile from the Fort and 10-15 miles in length north-east
to south. There were cinnamon plantations along the coast in Negombo, Kalutara,
Matara and Galle with a Cinnamon Department to deal with the trade.
He joined Muskett & Young becoming
head of the firm in November 1825. The firm of George Winter & Co. was
dissolved on 15.5.1828 and the business was carried on by J. E. Young.
On 4.2.1834 he was made first editor of
the "Colombo Observer" but before the end of the year he was
tried, with George Rivers and Nicholas Bergman, the printers, before the Supreme
Court presided by Justice Rough, senior Puisne Justice, for a criminal libel
against Thomas Oswin, Superintendent of Police, Colombo whom he had charged with
gross negligence and misconduct for having refused a warrant of arrest against
Rivers's servant. George was acquitted and Oswin died of tuberculosis not long
after.
George was a pioneer of sugar cultivation
on a commercial scale and other enterprises in Ceylon.. He started manufacturing
coir rope and distilling arrack at Kalutara.
George
planned to start a sugar plantation at Kalutara and mentioned this in his letter
to the Colebrooke Cameron Commission of Inquiry into the Kandyan Rebellion.
His
partner and co-editor of the "Colombo Observer" was an
Irishman, Christopher Elliott, MD, journalist and deacon of the Baptist Church,
Cinnamon Gardens. He was born at Clonmore in the barony of Ivert, Co Kilkenny
and married (1) Jessie Selina (d. 7.3.1855 aged 47), daughter of William Clark,
a merchant who imported Manchester1 goods to Ceylon and secondly in 1858 Bessie
Scott of Woodstown, Co. Waterford. Elliott came to Ceylon in 1834 and was
preceded by George Winter as editor of the "Colombo Observer".
He was stationed in Badulla, resigned in 1836 and was made Principal Civil
Medical Officer in 1858. He had a son Edward Elliot of the Ceylon Civil Service.
Christopher Elliott died on 22.5.1859 aged 49 years and was buried outside
Wolvendall Church Colombo.
He
bought "Temple Trees" (now the official residence of the Prime
Minister) in 1848 which had had been previously owned by John Walbeoff, head of
the Cinnamon Department who had bought it in 1830.
Walbeoff descended from Sir John Walbeoff
of the Brecon family to whom Bernard Newmarch gave lands and the manor of
Llanhamlach and Llanfihangel-tal-y-llyn (which came to the Winters of Brecon).
John Walbeoff of H.M. Civil Services was appointed 2nd Assistant at the
Secretariat on 2.1.1811, became Assistant Collector, Colombo, Vice-President of
the Land Raad, Negombo (25.12.1811), Assistant Collector, Chilaw and Puttlam
(1.2.1814) and Superintendant Cinnamon planter (1822). He had a bungalow at
Kadirane-Goluwapokuna near the stores and courthouse ("nadu soltuwa"),
4 miles from Negombo. On 19.2.1817 he married Jane, daughter of Baron Lynden or
Lyden, Assistant Collector of Customs, Jaffna. Walbeoff sent his wife back to
her parents in 1825 and then to England with their children. When he died she
married secondly Captain Irving Westmorland and thirdly Captain Fagan of the
Ceylon Rifle Regiment. Her eldest son (by Walbeoff) married Charlotte, daughter
of Robert Karl Roosmalecocq. She was cousin of Henrietta Roosmalecocq, wife of
Anthony Samuel White who were maternal grandparents of Rev. Charles Winter whose
mother Maria Eveline White was said to have been born at "Temple
Trees". Christopher Elliott, MD may have had a clinic there and was
present at her birth or alternatively because her mother's cousin lived there.
Maria Eveline married George Winter's son Alfred Octavius Winter
Walbeoff was rumoured to have died in a
duel with his wife's lover or during a hunting accident at Kadirana on
14.12.1834 when aged 39 years. He was buried in the Galle Face Burial Grounds.
After his death "Temple Trees" was sold to C. R. Buller who
helped Emerson Tennant with "Natural History of Ceylon". ("Temple
Trees - the place and its people" -R. Candappa, T.V. Goonetilleke).
Elliott sold his house for £2,300 in
1856 to John Philip Green who named it "Temple Trees".
"Certain
days linger in my memory, as specially delightful, which I spent in the "Temple
Trees" bungalow. "Temple Trees" is the name given to
the Plumiers ("Plumeria rubra" also called frangipani) of which the
beautiful fragrant blossoms are everywhere strewn by the Singhalese in the
Buddhist temples, with those of jasmine and the oleander as sacrificial flowers
before the images of the Buddha. Two old and splendid specimens of Plumiers
stand (only one remains today), with a few casuarinas, on the grass plot which
divided the villa named after them from the Galle Road, in Kolpetty." ("A
Visit to Ceylon" - Ernest Haeckel).
Elliott and Winter were co-editors of the
"Ceylon Observer" (first issue Tuesday 4.4.1834). The
newspaper's carrier pigeons travelled regularly between Galle, the mail port and
Colombo until 1857 when telegraph was installed.
In 1835 George Winter sailed in the "Africa"
(the Master of which was J. Skelton), in the company of Mr & Mrs Walker and
their two children. R. Jeffrey Esq., and Mr Adamson to Galle. He lived there for
14 years and is called a merchant of Point de Galle on the baptismal certificate
of his son Alfred Octavius. The house he lived does not seem exist any longer.
When his grandson, Rev. Charles Henry Winter visited Ceylon in the 1950s he
could not find it but wrote a description of it in his memoirs "After
the Lapse of 70 years".
In
1849 George Winter bought from an indigo merchant Mr Henley, a plantation on the
Gindura river at Baddegama about 12 miles from Point de Galle which was then the
main port of call on the route to the Far East where young East India Company
marines arrived on every Company sailing ship.
George Winter was a pioneer sugar planter
in Ceylon.
"The Dutch introduced sugar into
this island and Sir Edward Barnes experimented in its cultivation near Veyangoda
and in 1840 it was seriously worked by the late Mr George Winter, who may
be considered the pioneer of sugar in Ceylon. According to Bertolucci, the
cultivation of sugar cane was attempted twice upon an extensive scale, on the
same spot near Kalutara but on both occasions it proved unremunerative. Sir
Edward Barnes's experiment came later and was followed by Mr Winter and
other planters." (p. 372 "The Vegetable Products of Ceylon" -
F. Lewis).
"Baddegama is 12 miles from Galle on
the Gintota river. It is 7 miles from Hikkaduwa railway station to Halpatota
Ferry which is three quarters of a mile from the Baddegama resthouse. It was at
Baddegama that George Winter established the only sugar estate in Ceylon
that has lasted. The church at Baddegama was consecrated by Bishop Heber on
September 25th, 1825, which event is commemorated by a tablet in the
church." ("Tombstones and Monuments in Ceylon" - J.
Penrhyn Lewis).
George imported machinery and erected a
factory at "Sunny Side" on the banks of the Gindura river where
brown sugar was manufactured and after he and his son Edward Winter died, his
cousin Haverstock Hodsell Bowman took charge buying more modern machinery
building a second factory on Baddegama Estate where refined sugar was produced.
The price of sugar dropped from Rs 2 in 1881 to in half that price in 1910.
Sugar no longer being profitable the land was planted with tea and rubber.
George Winter may have been involved in
providing rare plants or wood for export to Britain.
George Winter died at Galle and an
inscription on tablet erected in the Dutch Reformed Church, Galle reads:
"Sacred to the memory of George Winter Esq., of Baddegama, who departed
this life 21st January 1853 aged 55 years." Four of his sons also
died in Ceylon, three being buried at Christchurch, Baddegama, one William
Sextus, within the church itself and the other at Galle.
George and Sarah had 12 children.
20.-Sep-2001
Closenberg Hotel at Galle was very dear to us when we played on the beach as
kids. It was destroyed and oil storage tanks placed on th the loveliest and
safest beach in the south and such an act of eco vandalism was committed when it
was closed. Closenberg was originally a Dutch fortification. It was bought by an
English merchant Marine who was with the East India Company and his Arms lie
over the door or so it is thought. They show the suns rays. However, they maybe
that of the EIC itself. I wonder whether the merchant knew my ancestor who took
the first Anglican missionaries in his ship to Baddegama nearby where the first
Anglican church was built. He was the Sugar pioneer, George Winter, a merchant
marine also with the EIC who was part owner of the ship 'Vittoria'. He founded
and edited the first independant newspaper in Ceylon, now alas taken over by the
State as were his former plantations which belonged to us. I often played on the
ramparts of the Fort and sipped lime juice at the NOH. Nearby is the Dutch
church where George's memorial is. I attended the Galle Convent. My ancestor
first reached Ceylon in the 1800's and my Dutch and German ancestors before
that. I wanted to establish an environmental charity at our former home near
Hikkaduwa but the local M.P is in charge and hands out land like a Rajah for
votes. Due to my ancestor, many local families made good and prospered as did
the area. He provided the local ships which called at Galle with sugar and
distilled Citronella oil from lemon grass, a variety is named after my own
grandfather who sent it to Kew where it is preserved.
Our lovely, peaceful island has been ruined. Hikkaduwa, completely spoilt. I am
afraid that Tourism destroys much as well as corrupt politicians. There is no
justice in Lanka anymore and it saddens me when I return to our once lovely
Closenberg as I did in 1994/5 and I am sorry you will never know just how
wonderful the area was. Koggala was also lovely and one could swim safely and
observe the coral as we did at Hikkaduwa. I wonder if you have visited any of
these places? If I find the brochure I got from the Hotel I will send you a
copy.
Sincerely,
Anne Winter Williams website: www.pillagoda.freewire.co.uk
Email: cottesbrooke@aol.com
5.8.04 TEMPLE TREES & THE
WALBEOFF'S
Temple Trees was once the home of John Walbeoff, head of the Cinnamon Dept in
1830 about whom tales of duels and murder were written.His wife, who left him,
was the daughter of the Baron Von Lynden.His had a son, John Edmund who was a
Wrangler at Cambridge University and later in the Ceylon Customs. JOhn Edmund
married Charlotte, daughter of Robert Carl Roosmalecoq and had a daughter,
Catherine Jane, who married George Adolphus Hole, who was son of the Rev. George
Hole of the Wesleyan Mission by his wife, Selina Tranchell. The latter family
were of Swedish descent. Selina was daughter of Lt. Gustavus Adolphus
Tranchell,of the Ceylon Rifle Regt. the son of John Tranchill, who was
appointed, Swedish Consul in Ceylon by his King, Gustavus Adolphus, after whom
he named his son.//Before the Walbeoffs, the residence was occupied by the Baron
Frederick Mylius, social reformer and anti-slaver and C.E.Layard of the CCS. The
latter was guardian to the children of Dr Abraham White who died young after
attending a patient with a contagious disease leaving his widow and seven
children in distress.
One can imagine the White and Layard children(there were 26!) playing in the
lovely gardens where my own gt. grandmother, Evelyn White, made her first cries.
The gardens I saw, were reminiscent of
English ones and I watched the President's spaniel romp about in 1995. I heard
it was lit with fairy lights for Independance day. A sight, I wished I had seen
whilst staying near by at the GFH.However, the security in place now, must be
far removed from those happier, times. It proves that, colonial regimes could be
benevolent under whom, all races lived in peace.
I hope this will interest the families mentioned.
Anne Winter Williams cottesbrooke@aol.com
25.10.04 GALLE FACE HOTEL
HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED
Hugh Blacklaw was a longtime planter who came out with his brothers, James &
Francis from Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire and left the island in 1907. He
married Maria Tate of Dolosbage in 1864. He writes in the Times of Ceylon in
1907: 'I arrived in Ceylon on 23rd August,1858 in the good ship Briton, a sailer
which came round the Cape, and did the voyage in 3 months - just 120 days. She
was a little ship of but 350 tons..Colombo was just a one horse show sort of
place. There were none of these big buildings, hotels and shops. There were no
rickshaws and trams. You could not get a bandy for hire in the streets unless
you made special arrangements with one of the hotels in the Fort. The Fort was
up then,with all its walls and fortifications and gates and you could not get
thru' without being challenged. There was very little of the town outside the
Fort. There were 2 hotels, frightfully dirty and undesirable places to stay in.
The Royal Hotel stood where the Post Office is now and there was a shanty called
the Galle Face Hotel,where the modern one of that name stands today. They were
paragons of dirt. The GFH was the sort of place you get away from as soon as
possible - it was so bad. No privacy, no cleanliness, canvas partitions and dirt
- worse than the fifth rate places you see in some town now'.
A far cry from the chandeliered ballroom of the fifties They were building a sumptous new wing when I left in February this year. How I enjoyed taking tea whilst watching the ships pass and listening to the surf crash against the sea wall at one of my favourite Hotels in all the world.
Anne W Williams cottesbrooke@aol.com
29.10.2004
Thanks for the facinating story about Ceylon in the 1860's and the GFH in particular. My brother and I stayed at the GFH on a trip to Sri Lanka in 1990 and enjoyed our short stay. The reason I am interested in your article is the fact that you mention the name of the sailing ship that Hugh Blackshaw arrived in 1858. I have been trying to find the name of the sailing ship that my Great-grand-father Richard William Rowlands would have arrived in Ceylon about the same time. I would appreciate if you could advise me on the shipping passenger registers of the 1850's that you know of. Regards, Ed Rowlands, Yarrawonga, Victoria, Australia.
Ed Rowlands edrowlan@bigpond.net.au
15.11.04
Dear Edouard,
I have contactd my sister re: passenger lists and she could not help. I would
suggest you contact the national Maritime Museum at Greenwich for advise.//Are
you in any way related to Peggy or Muriel Rowlands both formely of Ceylon and
now living in Aus.
Regards,
Anne W Williams
Hi Anne, Thanks for your reply. Muriel
is my sister and Peggy is my second cousin. Muriel lives in East Bentleigh in
Melbourne, Victoria and Peggy in Adelaide in South Australia.
Muriel married Harold Van Twest and they have two adult children, Melanie and
Harry.
Peggy married Warwick De Kretser and they also have two adult children.
If you give me some details of your friendships I will pass on your message to
them.
Regards,
Ed Rowlands
16.11.04
Dear Edouard,
Your name did ring a bell because of the French spelling. I think Muriel had a
younger sister and a brother, yourself. I knew Muriel very well because we were
both in the same class in Lindsay Girls School.Miss Nagasinghe was one of our
form teachers. I think Muriel also had a short spell in the boarding which was
very small with only about 21 girls under Miss Van den driesen.Peggy, I think
was also there at some time as a day pupil and attended the church in front of
the school in Bambalapitiya. Harold Van Twest, I met at a Royal Thomian match
and I think he was at St. Thomas's boarding in M.Lavinia where several of the
family attended. He will also remember me from that happy day we spent with our
Gray cousins, Jean and Anne at the match.Muriel was very quiet, She will
remember Pam Dean, Moira Paulusz, Lorraine Van der Wall etc.In fact, I have her
tel. no. if it is the same that Mrs V Driesen sent me as they have a Lindsay
Past Pupils Assoc. in Melbourne. I thought of ringing but felt it may have
changed since then. I would very much like to contact her if possible for old
times sake.
If I can Email you privately, I will
give you my address which Mis VDD has because I write to her now and then.
Regards,
Anne Winter Williams
Hi Anne, I have copied your e-mail to
Muriel and will be happy to pass on your telephone number or e-mail address to
her if you send them to me at my e-mail address which is
edrowlan@bigpond.net.au. My other sister's name is Marie and my younger brother
is Percy.
Regards,
Ed