Funday Times - Our Heritage

The month of June in 1806 is remembered as the month when the construction of the beautiful lake in the middle of the city of Kandy was completed by the last king of Kandy, Sri Vickrema Rajasinghe. That was exactly two hundred years ago.

The king obviously wanted to have a scenic spot in the city and used village labour under 'rajakariya' system - the service that the commoners had to perform for the royalty without any payment. It was an ancient ruling to render this service to the king when a set number of days' work had to be done every year by each person. It was a personal service rendered for the benefit of the country. The type of labour depended mainly on the caste to which a person belonged. 'Rajakariya' was abolished by the British in 1833.

Getting back to the lake, people were not happy in serving the king in building the lake because they felt it was not of any benefit to the people. It was only for reasons of beauty that the king was interested in building it. However, they had to obey the king's orders and work to turn a paddy field land into a picturesque lake.

An account published in the mid-19th century describes the lake as "one of the most attractive features of Kandy, being embosomed in hills which, in some parts, rise abruptly from its margin, their bases having been scarped to make the road, which runs all round it (a distance of about two miles), and forms one of the most favourite walks and drives of the European inhabitants, as well as a bathing and washing place for the natives."

It has been recorded that the ornamental wall round the lake was completed under the royal command by Gannoruwe Tikiri Gammaha and Parakatawela Arachchci. The island in the middle was a pleasure house, fishing and bathing pavilion for the royal family. A suspension bridge made of rope had connected the island to the bank and the palace quarters. The British had used the island as an ordnance depot in the early days to store artillery and munitions in the early days after the capture of the Kandyan kingdom.

The lake, to this day, adds a lot of colour and beauty to Kandy and remains a prominent landmark in the hill capital. The drive round the lake is an interesting one with a number of bends covering most part of the circular road.

First bank opened in Ceylon

June 1, 1841 saw the opening of The Bank of Ceylon (not to be confused with the present bank by this name) - the first bank to be started in this country.

It was initiated by a William Thompson who persuaded certain London business interests to start the bank incorporated by Royal Charter with a capital of £125,000 which was raised in Great Britain.

It was announced that "the Corporation has had a charter granted to it by the Crown, for the purpose of introducing capital in aid of commercial agricultural enterprise into the island of Ceylon".

It was the era when coffee was showing signs of becoming a thriving industry. Two yearslater, a branch was opened in Kandy.

Prior to the opening of the Bank, the merchants of Colombo got the money from Chettiar traders, agents of large Indian houses in Madras and other towns, who acted as bankers in those days and supplied the British merchants with cash for his bills of exchange on Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, which they remitted in payment of grain and other imported goods.

The Bank of Ceylon closed down in 1847 and another bank operating at that time, the Oriental Bank, took over their business and in 1851 both were amalgamated to form 'The Oriental Bank Corporation'.

It was on June 1, 1881 that the 'Tropical Agriculturist' magazine was started on the initiative of A M (Alistair Mackenzie) and John Ferguson. As the name suggests, it was a journal devoted to agriculture.

A. M. Ferguson (1816-1892), a Scotsman, was a pioneer in the field of journalism and contributed a lot for the development of journalism in Sri Lanka.

Having served as co-editor since 1846, he became editor and proprietor of the 'Observer' in 1859. He was an unofficial member of the Legislative Council who campaigned for the increased representation of unofficial members.

His nephew John spent over four decades in journalism from 1861 starting as a lad of 19 years. He was editor of the 'Observer' and also stared the 'Ceylon Handbook and Directory', which alter continued to be printed annually as 'Ferguson's Directory'.