Michael Roberts
I came across the genealogy of the Madugalle Family quite accidentally ..…. https://thuppahis.com/2026/02/08/the-madugalle-genealogy-from-way-back/#more-96229
It should serve as a springboard for historical reflection on the socio-political currents of the 18th to mid-twentieth century – work linked to our knowledge of (A) the British aristocracy and middle-class derived from novels as well as historical studies and (B) the data in Robert Knox’s account of his enforced ‘sojourn’ within the Kingdom of Kandy** and (C) our many-sided ‘store’ of family histories – written and oral.
A Kandyan Family ….in the making
Meegasthenna Walauwwa….renamed as Manor House…inside & outside
One of the striking features of the Madugalle genealogies is the evidence of large families with the womenfolk bearing say 7-8-9- even more children. We could conjecture that wealth, landed resources and the presence of a corpus of servants sustained such tendencies.
Questions arise. (A) Did the middling and lower-middle class families of that era also generate large families; (B) Did they resort to infanticide — suggested in Knox if my fallible memory is on the ball – to reduce such developments within their families?
The further question, of course, is the ways in which the networks developing out of familial marriage links and propertied power interlaced with the friendship networks associated with schools, sport and clubs in. say, the 1900s to 1980s, to sustain and/or expand socio-political clout. SO: this is an issue beyond the force exerted by Lionel and his son Ranjan Madugalle.[1]
Such issues demand a complex set of studies. An essential dimension of such work is the need to attend to the clout reposing within the Greater Metropolitan area of Colombo. The development of this metropolitan locus is indicated in the maps drawn by Kusuma Gunawardena and Percy Silva (now deceased both) for the book People Inbetween (1989 Sarasavi Publishers).
This focus, in its turn, must attend to the presence ….. and the socio-political clout … exercised by several numerically tiny, but well heeled, ethnic groups within Colombo and the southwestern littoral. The reference here is to the Bharatha, the Borahs, the Colombo Chetties, the Goans, the Malays, the Parsees, the Sindhis, …. etc
Their networking, moreover, involved membership and work in the evening & night at a host of recreational clubs – not just cricket, rugger & hockey clubs, but card-playing, snooker & billiard playing and, above all, boozing clubs …. the Colombo Club, the Capri, the CH & FC, CR & FC, Havelocks, Surf Club, ….to name just a few. THESE CLUBS constituted a field of power that has not been adequately researched as yet by any of our social scientists. …. And several of these clubs continue to do so today [perhaps less effectively}.
Parenthetically, I would add a footnote that highlights the recent addition of floodlights at the SSC grounds in Colombo 7. This is one step taken by a section of our dominant ruling order to sustain their socio-political clout – clout reduced by the stark power of floodlit stadiums ‘wielded by’ Khettarama and Pallekele for quite a while in circumstances where cricket is a field of great influence in voting banks and networking. When the Premadasa family upgraded Khettarama way back in the 1980s and 1990s, they revealed that they understood the force of cricket in the world of fame and political clout. The upper-class buggers at the P Sara and SSC could be upstaged by this ‘simple step’.
PLUS
https://www.worldgenweb.org/lkawgw/gen3147.html
https://www.worldgenweb.org/lkawgw/gen3147.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Premadasa_Stadium
https://wanderlog.com/place/details/3335389/capri-club
