Remembering a day of “mischief” at Galle Face Hotel with Cannonball run
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Final resting place: The cannonball in GFH museum
French Ambassador to Sri Lanka Jean-Marin Schuh and German Ambassador Juergen Morhard will take part in the Cannonball run celebrated by Colombo’s 150-year-old Galle Face Hotel, on March 18. The Cannonball run is an annual tradition celebrated on the Galle Face Green, to commemorate the extraordinary incident of a cannonball misfired by a member of the British Artillery in 1845.
The 30-pound cannonball, misfired during a practice session around the southern ramparts of the Colombo Fort, came crashing through the roof of the now Galle Face Hotel, leaving a heavy dent on the drawing room floor and came to rest under a chair. The cannonball is at present preserved in the museum located in the South Wing of the hotel.
In memory of this “infamous incident” an annual run has been held over the years, starting off at the cannon on the Fort end of the Green and ending at the cannonball in the hotel. Members of the diplomatic community, over the years who have run have included the likes of the American Ambassador Robert O’ Blake and the British High Commissioner Peter Hayes (2008), Maldivian Ambassador Ali Hussein Didi and Russian Ambassador Vladimir P. Mikhaylov (2010), French Ambassador Christine Robichon and Norwegian Ambassador Hilde Haraldstad (2011), Canadian High Commissioner Bruce Levy and British High Commissioner John Rankin (2012) to name a few.
Steve Bennett from the United Kingdom who was a guest at the hotel last year adds roots to this age old incident – Colonel Francis Seymour Douglas-Hamilton who was a Captain in the Royal Artillery stationed in Colombo in 1840 when the cannonball was fired, is incidentally a distant relation of his great-grandmother.“There is a famous family story about an ancestor who fired a cannon ball into a hotel in Ceylon, and they still keep the cannonball on display. It wasn’t until I researched my family history recently that I was able to put names and dates to this story,” he said. “It is wonderful to be able to still view the “incredible cannonball” and the mischief done at the hotel.”