picking tea buds

picking tea buds
a bonded slavery still exists in srilanka.
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Thursday, November 8, 2012


MORTALITY PROBLEM

In a opening a session of the legislative council, governor longden said that of 65 witness
who had appeared before the committee,30 thoughts that the ordinance had operated more or
less satisfactorily, while 35 felt that it was unsatisfactory. the medical witnesses had
wanted the government to undertake the entire responsibility for the health of the workers.
the committee had recommended a voluntary scheme which would however have safeguards to ensure
the proper care of the workers. longden said the fullest scope would be provided for voluntary
action but means would be provided to supplement such voluntary services where necessary.


in moving the repeal of the ordinance on 26 November 1879 in the legislative council, the colonial secretary stated that the whole scheme had not worked very well. estates had been divided on a geographical basic and if a river ran through an estate, access from one to another was difficult despite their contiguity. The scheme had been handicapped by a shortage of funds. the committees had tried to build hospitals and bear monthly expenses out of incomes which left no balance for some items of annual expenditure. there were difficulties in the collection of assessments and the planters did not take much interest in a scheme that was not their own. the government had therefore decided to the voluntary principle and the committees would be allowed to take the initiative of summoning meetings whenever necessary. generally the committee would function on their own and the government which would undertake the collection of the assessment, would other wise step in only when necessary.


the planters who were opposed to any from of "interference" by the government opposed the legislation even though it was a significant concession to them.
R.B.Downall, the representative of the planters in the council moved that the bill be read nine months hence-a parliamentary tactic of
expressing opposition. he said that although the government had spend large sums of money it had very little to show. he said that if
Ramaswamy was asked for his view he would say that it had been for the benefit of the doctors.he said that one doctor had been on leave 10 months in the last 18 months.
Downhall also alleged that native owners had evaded coming under the scheme by dividing their estates into blocks of less than 10 acres each,
and giving each block a different name,as estates under 10 acres were exempted from these schems. he said that as a result out of a total estate population of
about 360,000 estate workers only between 110,000 to 120,000 came under the scheme and he urged that provision should also be made for the others.
although a favourite joke among planters was how they had treated their workers with sauce, Downhall claimed that a government official had done precisely this.
he said that when workers in agovernment labour gang suffered from dysentery the officer in charge treated them with chlorodyne. when he asked for a fresh stocks. He therefore treated his sick workers with worcester sauce with very good results.amid laughter downhall said that if a planter had done such a thing it would have been reported to the government and there would have been a great deal said about it.

Ponnambalam (later sir) Ramanathan who had just succeeded sir Muttu coomara swamy as the Tamil member in the council, presented a very different picture of the situation in his speech. Ramanathan said there were 39 coffee districts with a total of 1,357 estates on which 275,000 to 300,000 workers were employed. There were 21 medical district with an average of 65 estates, and 15,000 workers. No doctor could look after 15,000 workers and as a result the doctors confined themselves to the superintendent and his family . the “coollies” were left to die at the rate of 60 per 1,000 which was three times as much as normal mortality.

l government public works department was also 60 per 1,000. Downhall was successful in his opposition to the bill in that the governor said that if he withdrew his motion about the bill being considered in nine months time ,the government would postponed consideration of it to another session. At the closing of the session the next day the governor paid a tribute to the planters saying “ on many estates I have seen with great satisfaction the care that is taken of the coolies”.

In the dying years of the coffee industry, as in those of its birth and growth, coffee workers continued to be “found dead” not only in the coffee districts and along the routes taken by them but also, in the last stages, even in the western province, and colombo. The overwhelming majority were workers who had been turned out of the estates when they were too sick to work.

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engal kudumbam

engal kudumbam
gayathry kalyana veedu



Title : Willie Group Tea Factory - The first tea factory in the island to use trough withering
Photographed by : Unknown
Submitted By : Ajith Ratnayaka
Approximate date of Photo : Unknown

Long Description : Abstract from the article �Remembering the �Local Pioneers� in the propagation of tea in Sri Lanka�, by Maxwell Fernando, published in the Daily News, Supplement of 4th February 2002

Satinwood Bridge over the Mahaweli river near Peradeniya

satinwood-bridge.jpg

Satinwood Bridge over the Mahaweli ganga (Mahaweli river) near Peradeniya, Ceylon


Date Original 1894
Photographer/Artist: Jackson, William Henry, 1843-1942

Courtesy, L.Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library,
Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602.

A satinwood bridge, which spans the Mahaweli-ganga. The bridge was constructed in 1832-1833 by Lt. Gen. John Fraser (1790-1982) which lasted until replaced by an iron bridge in 1905.

This bridge is a remarkable structure; it crosses the river with a single span, in which there is neither nail nor bolt, the whole of the massive wood-work being merely dovetailed together. It is constructed entirely of beautiful yellow satinwood, which fifty years ago was so plentiful in the forests of Ceylon that it was used for common building purposes. This wood is extremely hard and dur-able, as is evidenced by the present condition of the bridge, which has now withstood the effects of excessive damp and tropical heat for sixty-two years.
Golden tips. A description of Ceylon and its great tea industry (1904) Author: Cave, Henry William. 1854

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this is a story that needs to be told

Throughout the last century ceylon has been renowned for its TEA.on 22may 1972 ceylon was officially renamed asSRILANKA.But the countrys main foreign exchange earner continues tobe marketed as CEYLON TEA. Untill ceylons indipendence on 4th february 1948 and the decades that followed,ceylons immage has been that of t ommy liptons tea garden.The legend nurtured by british journalists and writers was that tommy lipton , grocers boy from glasgowcame to ceylon in 19th century and said here "we could grow tea here", and did so very succesfully.The sun has now set both on the british empire and on liptons empire within the empire , but ceylon and tea remain synonymous.

Donovan moldrich
bitter berry bondage

Compiled by Ian Gardner
(From documents provided by J. M. E. (Mike) Waring)
September 2008

HISTORY OF THE TEA FACTORY
By Royston Ellis. May, 1996.

The factory at the Hethersett tea plantation played an important part in the development of Sri Lanka’s tea industry, and in helping Pure Ceylon Tea to become renowned as the world’s favourite beverage.

Tea from the Hethersett factory was the first to fetch the highest price in the world for silver tip tea from Ceylon. In 1891, Hethersett tea was auctioned in Mincing Lane, London for £1.10s.6d, over thirty times the then average price 1s0d for a pound of tea.

This was an exciting achievement for a new tea factory.

Tea was first grown commercially in Ceylon (which became Sri Lanka in 1972) by a Scotsman, James Taylor, on a coffee estate named Loolecondera, near Kandy, in 1867. Taylor, with encouragement from Dr. Thwaites, the Director of The Royal Botanical Garden at Peradeniya, planted 20 acres of tea grown from seed imported from India.

It was a wise move as, soon afterwards, a dreadful blight ravaged the coffee plantations on which Ceylon’s economy depended. Planters turned in desperation to tea and cinchona (for quinine) as alternative crops. Within a decade of Taylor’s planting there were 5000 acres of tea growing in the hills of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya.

In response to requests to open up plantations, the government sold virgin crown land around Kandapola to pioneer planters in the 1870s. Among the bidders was Mr. W. Flowerdew. He was the first planter-proprietor, agent and resident manager of what became Hethersett Estate. This consisted of 250 acres of which he planted 150 with cinchona.

Flowerdew was a pioneer. He camped in the wilderness he had bought, working alongside labourers hired in gangs from India. Before clearing and planting the land, he built himself a log cabin, using boards sawn from trees felled to open up the land. The roof was foliage used as thatch. It was a primitive and tough life.

The name he chose for his plantation gave a clue about Flowerdew’s origins. He seems to have named it Hethersett after a village southwest of Norwich in England. Perhaps it was his home village since even today the distinctive name of Flowerdew is to be found in the Norwich area.

The Tamil name for the plantation is Poopanie. Translated into English it means Flowers of Frost. It is picturesque way of describing the cold mist that occasionally descends on Hethersett, which is 6800 feet above sea level, although only six degrees from the Equator. Actually the plantation name, however apt, is a direct translation into Tamil from the English name of its original owner: Flowerdew.

Flowerdew had a partner during his first year on the plantation, Jas. R. Jenkins, an experienced tea planter who advised him to grow tea as well as cinchona. History does not recall what happened to Flowerdew but by 1881 he seems to have sold the plantation. A temporary manager,[1] A.C.W. Clarke, was in charge and the estate was in the name of Jas. Whittall, with his own company, Whittall & Co., as agents.

The agent’s role was vital in the early days of the tea industry. Usually an estate proprietor was an individual or company based in England who needed an agent in Colombo to provide support, and supplies, to the manager of the plantation. A broker handled the sale of the crop.

Whittall & Co. remained as agents for a few years but ownership passed to Mr. J. MacAndrew. An experienced planter, K. MacAndrew, doubtless a relative, became the resident manager. In 1885, Hethersett consisted of 254 acres planted in tea and cinchona.

Cinchona served as a cash crop while the MacAndrews were nurturing tea. K. MacAndrews was also the manager of the neighbouring estate, Denmark Hill. This was the beginning of a link that resulted in green leaf grown at Denmark Hill being processed into made tea at the Hethersett factory.

The successful sale of the early shipments of Hethersett tea in London, and the record-breaking price selling price, in 1891, began the formidable reputation of the Hethersett mark, making it synonymous with Pure Ceylon Tea of quality.

By 1897, Hethersett was swallowed up by the Nuwara Eliya Tea Estates Company Limited into a combined holding of 3000 acres. The Company, registered in London, had Leechman & Co., as agents in Colombo. It was an association with both companies which Hethersett that was to last 75, years until nationalisation.

George Leechman founded his agency house in 1866. He was previously a partner with Wilson, Ritchie & Co. That company, was founded in 1830, eventually became part of Aitken Spence & Co., Ltd. the present managers of Hethersett.

The tea factory that produced Hethersett’s silver tips (a hand-rolled, sun dried, whole leaf tea) and its Orange Pekoe, was located down hill from the present factory, where the village crèche now stands. It was a small wooden building that expanded under the direction of a dynamic young planter called John Mac Tier.

Mac Tier arrived at Hethersett in 1900 when he was 27. There were 270 acres of tea then. He stayed for 25 years, dying suddenly in the old Hethersett factory when he was 52. There is a memorial plaque in the Holy Trinity Church, in Nuwara Eliya, “in affectionate memory”.

During Mac Tier’s tenure, the owning company happily reported dividends of between 9% and 12% every year.

Tea from the factory began its journey to market in tea chests carried by bullock carts down the rough tracks to the Railway station at Kandapola. The narrow gauge railway line was opened in 1903 (it closed in the 1940s) from Ragalla via Kandapola to Nuwara Eliya and Nanu Oya. At Nanu Oya the tea chests were transferred to the main, broad gauge line, and sent for delivery to the Colombo godowns. After auction, the tea chests went by steam ship to England or Australia.

The journey by train from Nuwara Eliya to Kandapola took one hour as the toylike engine puffed and weaved through the hills. Its maximum speed was six miles per hour.

Cyril Travers Nettleton, an unofficial police magistrate, was the planter at Hethersett for a couple of years after Mac Tier. He too, rests at Holy trinity Church, having been in charge of the Concordia Group, which includes Hethersett, when he died in 1944. He was succeeded at Hethersett, by A.J. Waterfall. During Waterfall’s time the original wooden factory in the village was burnt down.

The head of a hill was scalped to create a plateau for the new factory which is the hotel of today. When it was built in the mid-1930s, it was regarded as a remarkable work of engineering. There was no water or stem to power it, or mains electricity, only the ingenious use of an oil fired engine with fly-wheels and pulleys to operate the large fans for withering the tea, and also the rollers and sifters.

The factory produced top quality orthodox tea, both whole and broken leaf, for export. Tea grown on the neighbouring Denmark Hill estate was shuttled down to the factory in sacks along a wire stretched across the valley separating the two estates.

The planters in charge of Hethersett during the 1940s to 1960s were personable, capable men from Britain. Gordon Windus, manager for most of the 1940s, was a member of the prestigious Hill Club in Nuwara Eliya. In May 1934 he wrote testily in the visitor’s book there, “I should like to suggest that peas from the garden instead of tinned peas are served.”

Windus is remembered by the Hethersett villagers for the agricultural projects he started. These included a piggery in the village and a vegetable farm in the jungle at Kuruwatta.

Planter John Bousfield used to surprise the labourers by working in the fields with them, pruning the tea bushes himself. It is said that the bushes he pruned yielded the most tea.

Another British planter, J. M. E. Waring, who took over Hethersett in the late 1950s, and eventually, as group manager, supervised the closing down of the factory. He owned a horse which he used when inspecting the fields. He also raced this animal with a jockey, at the Nuwara Eliya race meets.

In 1968, the Hethersett factory had passed its heyday. Its machinery was regarded as old fashioned and uneconomical. It was the time of cost cutting and so the factory was closed. The Hethersett green leaf was sent to other factories in the Concordia group for manufacture.

For three years the factory was used as a warehouse for refuse tea, which is the fibrous reject after the manufacturing process. A few people were employed to sift the fibre and extract any remaining tea for local consumption. The residue was sold as fertiliser.






THE WORK OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONS SCHOOLS AND EDUCATION

In 1867 the Church missionary society (Anglican) established the Borella School for girls and in 1875 a similar one for boys. In 1923 the boys’ school was amalgamated with Christian college, kotte (now jayawardhanapura) and the girls’ school with mowbray college, Kandy, which is today a residential fee-levying school attended mainly by the daughters of estate clerks and conductors and those of similar rank. The boys’ school and its successors provided for many years not only clerks and conductors and their ilk, but also teachers, priests and trade union leaders serving in the plantation districts. It has ceased to perform this service after the closure of the Tamil stream consequent to the take-over of assisted schools in 1961. A day- school established to serve the same class of estate employees is now Uva College, Badulla, where the Tamil stream has had a similar fate; a government junior Tamil school stands on the site of the Kandy bazaar school, catering to the poorer children from the estates and the town of Kandy.

In the course of time the Christian missions established several schools, big and small, in the planting districts. Those run by the Anglicans include St Mary’s, bogawantalawa, St Andrews, nawalapitiya, Holy trinity college, Nuwara eliya and girl’s schools run by the church of Ceylon zenana mission, like the CMS girls’ school, Gampola. The Methodist contribution includes kingswood, Kandy (which closed its Tamil stream even before the ‘take-over’), Highlands, Hatton, and girls’ schools like the Badulla and Kandy high schools while the Baptists established two well known girl’s schools, Viz. Ferguson high school, ratnapura and the BMS school, Matale.

The Roman Catholics did not enjoy the patronage of the state the Anglicans did, but in course of time established schools like St Anthony’s and later St Sylvester’s, Kandy, dehiowita and girls’ convent schools like St Anthony’s, Kandy , St.ursula’s ,Badulla, and St Gabriel’s, Hatton.