Ivor Jennings’s statue unveiled
View(s):Granddaughter of the founder vice chancelor of the University of Peradeniya Ms. Rebbeca Caine said that Sir Ivor Jennings said that he was separated from his family for seven years in founding the University of Peradeniya.
She said that she was truly humbled that Sir ivor Jennings’s father was a carpenter and his mother was a corset maker. Their house was basic but Jennings had been born into a time of great social mobility where a smart boy could really make something of himself. “Papa grasped every opportunity offered and worked incredibly hard.”
Ms. Rebbeca Caine offers flowers
Ms. Caine said that even the death of his father when Jennings was 14 did not stop his progress and with his lioness mother, of whom he once said would have starved herself to give him an education, behind him, gained a place at Cambridge and put him on the path that led him to Si Lanka.
She said that all her life her mother Shirley Watson had spoken of Sri Lanka in mystical terms. Her siblings and she grew up in a house surrounded by lovely objects from this country. She said that he hoped to visit but never dream it would be a case such as this.
Ms. Caine said that in 1940 Jennings boarded a ship for Colombo thinking that his family would follow within two weeks. But, the ship her grandmother boarded was bombed by the Germans and her mother was injured. The family was rescued and returned to Britain, not to see Jennings for six years.
She said “I was reflecting on this as I was at breakfast at the Galle Face Hotel, where Papa, that’s what we children called him, first stayed and thought how hard it must have been for him too, being so far from his family. I was five years when he died and have only a few memories of him, wreathed in cigarette smoke and constantly writing, playing patience. He was a famously unemotional and detached man.”
She said that her strongest recollection of Sir Ivor Jennings was a holiday in Canada, where to make her laugh when he was feeding the chipmunks, he tied a peanut to a piece of string and tied it to a banister. The chipmunk launched itself at the nut and swung like Tarzan which delighted her – the four year old.
She said that last year she was touring the United Kingdom in a production of Sound of Music and spent a week in Bristol where Jennings was born. She said that armed with a census, so as to find the addresses of the houses he had grown up in and his autobiography to find the schools he had been to, she she set off to get more of a sense of him.
Ms. Caine said that she spoke to her mother from Sri Lanka and she had told her that Sir Ivor’s years at Peradeniya were the happiest of his life and said that it reflected in this stunning campus.
She said that their siblings and their off spring have all gone on to university and her brothers to Cambridge and Oxford, her sisters to Princeton and Smith and their children to Cornell, Princeton and Harvard and said that her grandfather would forgive too the fact that she, his granddaughter who had crossed the world to be in Sri Lanka was the only one who did not proceed to higher education and instead became a signer and performed, which she said hopefully qualifies her to make the speech she had done.
Ms. Rebbeca Cain with the sculptor Professor Sarath Chandrajeewa and with them is her husband Timothy Richards
So it is from there that Rebbeca Caine unveiled the statue of the founder of the University of Peradeniya on the invitation of the Vice Chancellor of the University Upul B. Dissanayake on Wednesday at the Peradeniya Campus premises. She arrived in the country for the ceremony accompanied by her husband William Timothy Richards.
The Chancellor of the University Professor Kingsley M. de Silva said that he had seen Sir Ivor Jennings while he was at the university, while he was a historian and Sir Ivor was in the law department.
He said that it is time this statue herected as he had done so much for the university and had built it from scratch. There was another who should be remembered at this moment in time and that was late Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake, if not for him the university would never have come up in such a short time. The late D. S. Sennayake as the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Ministers gave lavishly to form the university at Peradeniya.
In the same light the architect of the university Sir Patrick Abercrombie also should be remembered in this hour and also Shirley de Alwis who worked with Sir Patrick to make this colossal task a reality.
The chancellor said that the history of the university should be written and that he has been searching for the files of Sir Patrick during his work at the university but he had not been able to lay his hands on them.
The Vice Chancellor Upul B. Dissanayake said that this is the finale of the “jubilee” celebrations of the university and that he thought it would be a fitting tribute to a man who had created the university for the benefit of education in the country. He said that it was also a great pleasure to have invited the granddaughter of Sir Ivor Jennings to unveil the statue of the founder of the University at Peradeniya.
The sculptor of this statue was the Vice Chancellor Professor Sarath Chandrajeewa of the University of Visual and Performing Arts, a vice chancellor creating another vice chancellor.
Professor Emeritus K. N. O. Dharmadasa delivered the keynote address and said that in the autobiography of Sir Jennings “Road to Peradeniya” he says that a graduate of the University of Peradeniya is equal to any graduate of any university. He said that the legislation for all the universities in the countries was drawn up by Sir Ivor Jennings and that is the base for all the universities. In a special booklet Professor Dharmadasa had given a background of Sir Ivor and his stay in the country.
The granddaughter of Sir Ivor Jennings, Ms. Rebecca Caine also addressed the distinguished gathering and gave a vivid description of how Sir Ivor spent seven years separated from his family for the sake of building this unique university.
Deputy Vice Chancellor, Professor Lakshman Wijeweera proposed the vote of thanks. By L. B. Senaratne