Cornell University Library Digital Collections

Pantheon of British colonial officials

Title:
Pantheon of British colonial officials
Collection:
Depicting the Sri Lankan Vernacular
Creator:
Skeen, William Louis Henry
Date:
1868
Location:
Sri Lanka
Country:
Sri Lanka
Identifier:
MCD2_0144
Work Type:
albumen prints
Subject:
environmental history
Knuckles Conservation Forest
colonialism
coffee
Description:
Montage of images of 19th century British colonial officials and military figures who established British rule and pioneered colonial culture, especially plantation culture and infrastructure. They include (as shown to right from top left) Sir R. Wilmot Horton (1784-1841), Governor of Ceylon, 1831-1837; General John Frazer, soldier, Peradeniya bridge engineer and mapmaker; Sir Henry Ward, Governor of Ceylon 1855-1860; Sir Hercules Robinson, Governor of Ceylon, 1865; Mr. G.L. Mollesworth, Director General of the Railway (1865) and Director of Public Works (1867); Major Skinner, Commissioner of Roads and Civil Engineer; Mr. W.S. Faviel, Contractor for the construction of the Railway, 1860s; Sir Charles McCarthy, Governor of Ceylon 1860-1868; and (center) Sir Edward Barnes, Governor of Ceylon, 1824-1831, credited with completing the road to Kandy. Further biographical details appear in the end notes Skeen provided to the Knuckles poem.
Repository:
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library
Rights:
The images in the Sri Lankan Vernacular are protected by copyright, and the copyright holder is the Estate of their creator/photographer, Bonnie MacDougall. Images in the Sri Lankan Vernacular collection were created between roughly 1960-2012, and were digitized by Cornell University Library from a variety of negatives, positives, and slides retained by the Estate of the photographer. Cornell is providing access to the materials for research and personal use. The written permission of any copyright and other rights holders is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use that extends beyond what is authorized by fair use and other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

About the collection

This collection of original photographs and drawings is drawn from ethnographic research on architecture and traditional domestic life in Sri Lanka, conducted in various periods between 1965 and 2012, by Bonnie and Robert MacDougall. These original images, as well as other visual records, pertain to lifeways and hereditary practices in the Central Highlands, and more particularly to a single remote Sinhala community, Mimure,* in the hinterlands of the Kandy District. Although the collection is focused primarily on images, it also includes information on additional publications (under Resources as addenda) pertaining to the community. In this way, it joins a vigorous twentieth-century ethnographic record to the little Sri Lankan community, which is otherwise regrettably without a significant visual dimension.