George Steuart & Co commences restoration of artifacts

George Steuart & Co., Sri Lanka’s oldest mercantile establishment, has commenced an exciting project to restore a repository of artifacts that trace back to its founding in 1835 and its early operations. The recently uncovered artifacts include diaries and journals belonging to the founders, ledgers, profit and loss accounts, company seals, employment records and many more documents from the early 1800s. The restoration is being conducted under the careful guidance and expertise of the National Library and Documentation Services Board Sri Lanka in order to preserve and archive the rare collection.

The Chairman of the National Library and Documentation Services Board, Sonala Gunawardana under whose guidance the project has been initiated, said “It is a delight and an honour to be involved in the restoration of the George Steuart collection of artefacts. A collection such as this adds rich detail to our knowledge of how early Ceylon functioned. There is a great necessity to find, restore and archive artifacts of this nature in order to have a more thorough understanding of the building blocks of our socioeconomic history.”