A 200- year history and fascinating story of a family
View(s):Traversing this road through a long history, one wood imagine, could not have been smooth. But the newest writer in the Rockwood family, Sukumar has surmounted any difficulties in his way and recounted his family saga with commendable ease and aplomb.
This is a two hundred year history, a fascinating story of a family of distinct culture and tradition whose progeny have maintained the family name gracefully through the generations. Six generations have passed by and the seventh on its way. Lurking in the mind of the writer was the fear that with time, any surviving records of his family would soon be perished. This then was what prompted Sukumar Rockwood to study his family’s history and write it for posterity.
Looking through the elegant volume that he has produced, it is indeed a worthwhile task that he has put his hand to. His inspiration to write the family history was from his first recent visit to Jaffna on September 05, 2002 where he stumbled on two ‘Rockwood Wards’ in the Mcleod Hospital in Inuvil, Jaffna. That was the beginning of a ten year effort during which he listened to stories from folk in Jaffna, waded through old newspaper clippings and then he says,
Portrait of Colonel David Rockwood by Saraswati Rockwood
‘I set out on a journey into the confused and unknown!’
There were books of clippings maintained by one of the ancestors, bits of paper with some vital information clinging to their frayed leaves, handwritten notes and stories from his mother that Sukumar waded through. A second trip to Jaffna brought more intimate information including the vivid details, which as Sukumar recounts, ‘even my mother did not know!’
There is then the mystery of Williamstown which had to be solved. What could a town in Massachusetts in the United States have in common with a little village in the northern corner of the tiny island of Sri Lanka? This was a distance which covered half way round the globe and in the 1880’s would have taken weeks by sea. In 1765, according to the author’s research, Williamstown was inaugurated and Batticotta (Vaddukoddai) saw the invasion of the Portuguese followed by two other world powers – the Dutch and the British. This was the time that American missionaries came to Sri Lanka and began to convert Hindus in the area into Christianity. This bit of history brought into the author’s mind several questions of ethics of such conversions to which he sought answers throughout his efforts to write his family’s history.
There were many questions to which it was difficult to find answers. But as he says such references to the historical background is important as ‘one must always be aware of the past in order to relate to the present and beyond.’
This book is a journey into the past with the history of the Rockwoods as its centrepiece. The brief encounters with eminent personalities, interesting incidents, bits of history which often tend to be forgotten in the public mind and the role played by such distinguished families as the Rockwoods give colour and variety to the bare bones of a historical record.
The more important aspect of this publication is the record of the contribution of these ancestors of the Rockwoods and succeeding generations to this country. In a litany of services they provided, two significant endeavours can be highlighted – their services to medicine and cricket, two areas in which Sri Lanka has gained international recognition.
Woven into the family saga of the Rockwoods, their individual roles and contributions to their country of birth are the details of the country’s history, both political and historical, during these years. This is a meticulous piece of research against which the author has placed his family’s history. It provides a discerning view to some of the more turbulent years of foreign invasions, their repercussions on the lives of the people and the trials which they had to undergo, in this potted history of Sri Lanka.
Sukumar’s recounting impresses the reader in the way he brings to the fore the sense of continuity of values and principles of his family through the generations despite the many vicissitudes they faced along with the rest of the people of this country.
(The 100th Birth Anniversary of Colonel David Narasiah Rockwood falls today)
| Book facts
From Williamstown to Vaddukoddai: The History of the Rockwood Family. Published by William Sukumar Rockwood. Reviewed by Vijita Fernando |