Michael Roberts
The photograph above of the twenty-two men who participated in the cricket match in 1910 between George Vanderspar’s XI and eleven British civil servants in Ceylon has been taken from SP Foenander’s wonderful book Sixty Years of Ceylon Cricket published in Colombo in 1924. Its import ranges beyond the cricket field.
Filed under British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, communal relations, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, landscape wondrous, life stories, patriotism, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, unusual people, world events & processes
Michael Roberts
The sea lanes of the British Empire took men (rather than women) far and wide. Sri Lankan traders, many of them from Galle and its hinterland, traded in Mombasa, Zanzibar and even as far inland as Blantyre in the Rhodesias during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Others went as workers to Thursday Island and northern Australia.[1] Yet others traded at Singapore or joined the colonial service in Malaysia.[2] A few intrepid souls ended up in Brazil and the Caribbean. David Scott, a scholar-academic from Jamaica whose writings encompass the Sri Lankan scene, is descended from one such diasporic Lankan through his mother.
So, too, did four sons of Barbados end up in Sri Lanka as part of the British colonial order during the early twentieth century. This is a partial picture of their engagements in the field of cricket. Let me identify them first and note that there is self-interest in this story.
T.W. Roberts (1880-1976)
J.C.W. Rock (c.1886-1946)
T.F.C. Roberts (1901-1984)
Gilbert C. Roberts (1903-81)
TW Roberts is standing on the extreme left
Filed under British colonialism, centre-periphery relations, cricket for amity, cultural transmission, education, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, landscape wondrous, life stories, performance, self-reflexivity, Sri Lankan cricket, sri lankan society, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
Tony Donaldson
A propaganda piece published in The Australian on 2 October 2020. depicted the Pope as an evil monster with horns, as if the CCP is controlling him
.
1) China is evil 2) The Vatican have an agreement with China 3) Therefore, the Vatican and Pope is evil. This is a load of baloney .
Colonel PD Ramanayake
Gilbert Clyde Roberts son of the late Mr. T. W. Roberts C. C. S. and brother of Mr. T. F. C. Roberts, District Judge, was born in Barbados[1] where he had his early education. He came to Sri Lanka fresh from the University of Durham, after obtaining a degree in Western Classics. He joined the Staff of St. John’s College, Panadura when Cyril A. Jansz (senior) was the principal. In addition to being Prefect of Games at St. John’s, he taught English and Latin in the Cambridge and London Matriculation forms of the school. 
Michael Roberts
Punchibanda Meegaskumbura would not demand a Professor’s title before his name if he could see us today. He was of the Sinhala people and a man for all peoples – rooted in simplicity, but blessed with many skills. These knowledges he readily made available to all and sundry as his colleague in arms within the Sinhala literary field, KNO Dharmadasa has made clear in The Island. My own plaudits will appear below…. BUT Chandra R. de Silva has provided the world with as succinct and incisive summary of Punchi’s contribution to research and scholarship as anyone could ask for.
KNO Dharmadasa, in The Island, 2 October 2020, …. https://island.lk/prof-meegaskumbura/
Professor P.B.Meegaskumbura, who passed away on the 20th of October after ailing for sometime, is well known among Sri Lankan scholars as an academic who has contributed immensely to expand the vistas of Sinhala Studies. His research and publications include studies of the many branches of Linguistics, the study of Sinhala Classics, Buddhist History, Semantics, Stylistics, and the Society and Culture of the Veddas. Whatever he wrote, whether in Sinhala or English, bore the hall mark of high quality.
Sam Samarasinghe aka SWR de Samarasinghe, in Daily Mirror, 20 October 2020, where the title reads “Socio-Economic Implications of the 20A”
The draft 20th Amendment (20A) to the Constitution is being opposed by the main opposition parties and some segments of civil society and professional groups. The most politically significant opposition comes from some leaders of the Sangha who played a major role in the election of Gotabaya Rajapaksa as President. They want a new constitution as the SLPP promised, but not the 20th Amendment. In general, the main criticism of 20A is that it would create an authoritarian Government run by the Executive President without the usual checks and balances that the three main branches of government, legislature, executive and judiciary have in a normal democracy.
Filed under accountability, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, economic processes, education, governance, heritage, historical interpretation, island economy, legal issues, life stories, modernity & modernization, politIcal discourse, power politics, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes
Roel Raymond, in RoarMedia, 26 February 2018, with this title “Portuguese-Sri Lankan Surnames And Their Meanings” ….. https://roar.media/english/life/history/portuguese-sri-lankan-surnames-and-their-meanings
The Portuguese arrived in Ceylon, or Ceilão, as they called it, by chance. In 1505, a fleet commanded by Lourenço de Almeida—the son of Francisco de Almeida, the first viceroy of Portuguese India—was blown into Galle by adverse winds. It was thirteen years later, in 1518, that the Portuguese established formal contact with the Kingdom of Kotte, ruled by Vira Parakrama Bahu, and were permitted to build a fort in Colombo.
Filed under Afro-Asians, art & allure bewitching, authoritarian regimes, centre-periphery relations, commoditification, communal relations, cultural transmission, economic processes, ethnicity, heritage, historical interpretation, Indian Ocean politics, landscape wondrous, life stories, migrant experiences, performance, politIcal discourse, Portuguese imperialism, Portuguese in Indian Ocean, religiosity, self-reflexivity, sri lankan society, transport and communications, travelogue, unusual people, world events & processes
A de luxe edition of FACETS OF CEYLON HISTORY THROUGH THE LETTERS OF JERONIS PIERIS, by Michael Roberts, has been printed by Bay Owl Press in 2020 to replace the 1976 edn and is available for Rs 6500/ at Turf Equipment Ltd, 17A, Swarna Road, Colombo 6 as well as Barefoot, Cargills Book City, Sarasavi, Vijitha Yapa, Gallery Café bookshop, JamFruitTree, Kalaya, Pendi & Urban Island…. while foreign purchases could be secured via http://www.pererahussein.com.
The main text is the same as in 1976; but the index has been extended and numerous photographs of historical value have been added.
Filed under Uncategorized
thuppahi
