More on the Burghers

by HM Nissanka Warakaulle

It was interesting reading the piece by Mr. J. Godwin Perera on the Burghers (SI Nov. 22). I thought it will be appropriate to add a little more about the Burghers who had contributed in a big way to enliven the lives of many Lankans.

First I would like to thank Mr. Perera, who despite being a Royalist, mentioned Mr. Louis Edmund Blaze’, the founder of Kingswood College, Kandy. Blaze’s vision was of a school with with a close relationship between the teachers and students rather than training the boys to merely pass examinations. He wanted to make good citizens with moral values. Other than the important things mentioned by Mr. Perera, such as introducing rugger in schools, cadetting and rowing, he introduced the Prologue at the annual Kingswood prize giving. This narrated what had happened at home and abroad in the year reviewed. He wrote the Prologue until he died. It continued with an old boy doing the honors thereafter.

He also introduced addressing the students as “Gentlemen of Kingswood”, something unique to that school. He, as principal of a boy’s school, was the first to recruit lady teachers to a boys’ school here. The school had such dedicated Burgher teachers (all of them spinsters) to mould the lives of toddlers from the then Baby Class to Standard Two. Some of them were Misses Eileen Clement, Gertrude Thorpe and Muriel Elias. In the middle school there was Miss Joyce Da Silva.

The other famous educationists of the day were Mr. Oorloff of Wesley College and then Trinity, Cannon de Saram of St. Thomas’, Mrs. Labrooy of Girls’ High School, Kandy and Mr. Schockman, the founder Principal of Thurstan who came from Kingswood.

In the University of Ceylon, in addition to Prof. EOE Pereira, mentioned by Mr. Perera, there were Mr. Labrooy and Fr. Pinto in History, Prof. EFC Luduwyke and HE Passe in English, Mr. Ian Van den Driesen in Economics and Dr. Hingert in Philosophy. The Faculty of Medicine had Professors Koch and Chapman and Dr. Jansz among others.

In the sport arena there were many sportsmen and women who were outstanding. Mr. Perera had mentioned Duncan White and Eddie Gray. Duncan White’s brother Freddie (from Kingswood) was considered Asia’s best hockey goalie of his time. The National hockey team had a number of Burgher players in addition to Freddie White, such as Ivan de Kretser, who captained the team for a number of years, Richard Heyn, Derrick Harvie and Dennis De Rozairo.

In cricket there were Vernon Prins, Clive Inman, David Heyn (compared to Neil Harvey as an outstanding fielder at cover point). Richard and David were sons of Brigadier BR Heyn, who has been the only Burgher Commander of the Sri Lanka Army. He represented Sri Lanka in cricket and hockey, a unique achievement.

In tennis there was Rupert Ferdinands who carried the Ceylon flag for a long time whilst in swimming and diving Sri Lanka had the Bollings, and Swan.

As for Beauty Queens we had Maureen Hingert who put Sri Lanka on the map becoming second runner up at a world beauty contest. Like Jacqueline Fernandez joining the Bollywood beauty brigade, Maureen starred in a few Hollywood films.

In music the most famous duo were the de Saram brothers, Rohan and Druvi. Then we had Douglas Ferdinands an exceptional violinist and an excellent teacher who also played in the Symphony Orchestra and had his own junior orchestra where he trained young musicians, some of whom graduated to the Symphony Orchestra led for a long time by Eileen Prins. There were very good pianists such as Noel Forbes, Fr. Eric Bartholomeusz and Clem Croner.

In the entertainment industry there were Burghers of the calibre of Cliff Foenander, Bill Forbes, Alston Koch, Dalrene Suby, Noeline Honter, Desmond Kelly and Ronnie Leach who made their mark here and abroad.

There were a number of very good school cricketers of our vintage. Whilst Royal had Lorenz Pereira, Michael Willie, Fitzroy Crozier and Darrel and Eardley Lieversz, S. Thomas’ had Michael Sproule, Michael Tissera, Dennis Ferdinands, Errol Lisk. In Wesley there were the famous Claessen brothers. The list goes on – Trinity had Eric Roles, Errol Fernando and St. Anthony’s had Ronnie Stevens and the Joseph brothers

The national Rugger teams had very good Burgher players at various times such as Malcom Wright, Eric Roles, Van Langenberg,

In addition to doctors Noel Bartholomeusz and, RL Spittel in Colombo, Dr. Roy Peterson, Dr. Winn and Dr. Frewin who were well known in Kandy. These were in addition to Doctors Darrel Weinman and Travis Pereira.

George Keyt and David Paynter were world renowned painters whilst Wiiliam Blake excelled in cinema, Rodney Jonklaas in under sea explorations and Lionel Wendt in photography and music. He was also a patron of the arts..

And last but not least there was Donovan Andree and later his son Malcolm. Donovan was instrumental in bringing the Holiday on Ice show held on an artificial ice rink and the famous Egyptian magician Gogia Pasha and wrestlers from many countries such as Dara Singh, King Kong and Wong Bok Lee. We never had anybody else to emulate Donovan as a showman.

Editors note: The list of Burgher achievers can never be comprehensive. A reader pointed out that Chief Justice MC Sansoni and Dr. RL Brohier were notable omissions from the first piece by Godwin Perera. Undoubtedly there will be many more gaps and omissions In a long list of the best and the brightest Burghers.