Pioneers & Legends of
Ceylon Tea
There are a few main characters in the history of tea who helped the tea industry to grow and to stand where it is today. Some of these key figures are known but some are still hidden in the dark. Among them James Taylor is a key figure who is also known as the “father of Tea” in Sri Lanka. There are few more prominent characters as well.
James Taylor
He is the pioneer of Ceylon Tea. He arrived in Ceylon in 1852 as a 17-year-old. He billeted at Loolecondera Estate in Galaha which is a coffee plantation in the Kandy District. He visited India to upgrade his knowledge of growing tea in 1866. Once he returned he planted a 21-acre plot of tea on Loolecondera in 1867.
The timing was just great as the coffee plantations were wiped out within a couple of years. His initiative enabled a new industry to promptly replace an old one which had been brought to its knees. It also gave a chance to the investors, owners, and planters who had lost their ways stuck with their investment plans.
Guilford Lindsey Molesworth
In 1859, Sir Guildford Molesworth who was an English Civil Engineer arrived in Ceylon 1859. He was appointed the first Chief Engineer of the newly established government railways in Ceylon in 1862. With the downfall of coffee and soon the rise of the tea industry as a primary objective for establishing the railways in Ceylon.
Fast progress was made with lines eventually reaching the prime tea growing areas of Kandy, Nawalapitiya, Nanu Oya, Bandarawela, and Badulla. He ended his career with the railway department soon after that.
Henry Wickham
He is considered to be the father of the modern global Rubber industry. He took 70,000 seeds from the rubber-bearing tree, Hevea brasiliensis, in the Santarém area of Brazil, to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, London in 1875. Seedlings were then shipped to Ceylon. It initiated the island’s famed rubber industry.
Keith Captain Jolly
Britain’s financial crisis in 1845 had severe complications in Ceylon’s coffee industry for more than a decade. Estates that had been purchased for high rates such as Pounds Sterling 15,000 in 1843, were sold for a very low price as Pounds Sterling 440, five years later.
The Planters Association was founded in 1854 as the planters identified the need for a representative body to salvage their interests in a serious situation. Captain Keith Jolly was the person who was elected to represent the Association as its first Chairman.
Sir Edward Barnes
He was a British Army Officer who was the Acting Governor of Ceylon from 1820 to 1821. He was appointed as the Governor from 1824 to 1831. A vital prerequisite for the industry to develop. He was not only a Governer but he took a personal interest in the coffee industry, and it was he who identified the hill districts as being more suitable for coffee growing than the low country areas. He also constructed a Governor’s Residence in Nuwara Eliya which was named Barne’s Hall. Currently, after many upgrades and expansions is now open in the name of the famous Grand Hotel of Nuwara Eliya.
The tea industry is where it is today because of these great people. The history of Ceylon Tea is worth knowing.