A WALK AROUND OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD

The AILS Colombo Center | Courtesy: Phusathi Liyanaarachchi

Written by Phusathi Liyanaarachchi and Mithsandi Seneviratne

As many of you may remember, we have spent eighteen memorable years at Sulaiman Terrace, absorbing the many things the neighbourhood had to offer while frequenting the various cafes, particularly the Cakery, and restaurants around Thimbirigasyaya. The time has finally come for us to relocate to a new and inviting neighbourhood. Moving our office to Wellawatte, Colombo 6, has been particularly enriching as it exposed us to alternative histories that may have been pushed aside as unimportant in the grand narrative of this city that never rests.  

While the prominence that the Fort and other central parts of Colombo gain in popular historical narratives holds testimony to the pivotal role they played in connecting trade and transport to the city at large, many stories that lesser Colombo seeks to tell are often ignored in favour of such already photographed, written-about histories.  This, therefore, is a humble attempt to write a history of what’s left of the past of the Wellawatte neighbourhood.

As we inhabit these places today, we must also remember the unspeakable violence of Black July. Being home to the largest Tamil community in Colombo, Wellawatte and Dehiwala were among the worst hit areas in the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom. As their homes and shops were attacked, looted and destroyed, Tamils had to flee the area or seek refuge. The extent of the damage can be illustrated by Ratnakara Road,  where out of the 53 houses, about 24 Tamil owned/occupied houses were set on fire.  We will explore this issue  in a future photo-essay alongside other narratives about the area.  

Our interest, for this particular write-up, begins in the very junction close to our office. Its old name “Redimola Handiya” (The clothes-mill junction), a colonial legacy, still persists and comes to life through stories of its past-workers and residents of the area. The area has given into high-rise structures, increasing its land value over the past couple of years. For the old places that are left without funding and investors, it is a struggle to simply maintain the premises amidst the growing pandemic. 

Our first-stop will be the namesake mills that wove themselves  into the tapestry of life of the surroundings.  

 

1. Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills (6 minute walk from Fonseka Terrace, Havelock City now stands where the Mills once were)

Established in 1888 by Darley Butler & Co., with machinery, dyeing masters, weaving masters, and engineers from the UK, the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills quickly became one of the most successful industrial ventures of its time. By 1899, only 11 years after its establishment, the mills posed a substantial threat to the UK’s interest, as outsourcing of labour and production led to a further increase in unemployment among British factory workers, due to the replacement of hand-weaving techniques with novel technology and cheap labour from the colonies. Owing to this, Whitehall made a decision in 1899 to cease technological transfers relating to the textile industry to Ceylon, which pushed its  owners to abandon the mill to local interests.

Thereafter, the mill was taken over by a Khoja syndicate of merchants from Bombay led by Ahmedbhoy Habibhoy. During this time, the mills expanded their workforce and over 600 workers were brought from India. To this day, these communities reside in the area and it is said that the Kovil and the Mosque on Mayura place were erected specially for the benefit of the factory workers. This sudden increase in population in the area led to the expansion of the Wellawatte Market and settlements in the area. Between 1917 and 1949  the ownership of the mills changed hands many times. In spite of this there was a steady growth in the business due to consistent investment in expansion projects and up to date technology over the years. 

Despite their efficiency and technological advancements, the mills were not achieving the expected potential production or profits due to the fact that the cotton used to produce yarn, that in turn was used for the production of material, was entirely imported from India and therefore costly. This concern about the cost of cotton had prevailed since 1898 when there was talk of liquidating the company. Crystal Hill, a shareholder, wrote to the Ceylon Observer that the closing of the mills would render the proposed railway to the north redundant as the plans to utilize land in the north to grow cotton would be pointless without local demand for the product. In response to the arguments that Ceylon cotton could be exported, she stated that “The only weaving establishment in Ceylon could not have worked at a profit with imported cotton. Then how could one expect to grow cotton on the island at a profit for export to other countries. If Ceylon lost by using Indian cotton then surely India would lose by using Ceylon cotton.”  In 1922, E.S. Captain, manager at the time, and later the director of the mills, expressed his dissatisfaction regarding the supply of cotton at the opening of the newly expanded mills. The Governor of Ceylon at the time, Sir William Manning, who officially declared the mills open, responded stating in his address that new railway expansions could provide access to new areas for the economic cultivation of cotton. However, these ambitious plans to grow cotton in Sri Lanka never saw fruition.

Another concern, as expressed in 1898 by a concerned citizen in another letter to the paper, was the sudden spike in unemployment in the area that would arise if the mills shut down. The writer suggested that crime rates would increase as hundreds of men would become desperate in the face of an already oversaturated job market. This sheds some light upon the importance of the mills to society, particularly the working class, at the time. By 1917, the mill employed 1,200 workers. After the expansions in 1922, this number was expected to increase to 2,000. The Mills also had an arrangement with the Wellawatte Industrial Home in Havelock (known today as the Boys Industrial Home and Orphanage Sri Lanka), a home for orphans and children of destitute parents which housed about 100 boys by 1893, in which the boys were allowed to work part time at the Mills. Many would go on to become full time workers after completing their education. With such a large workforce it is not surprising that the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills (and its workers) contributed significantly in weaving Sri Lanka’s early labour movement fabric.

The History of Labour Unrest 

The earliest mention of protest at the Mills that we found refers  to an incident in 1914, when fifteen workers went on strike to protest its working conditions. The workers stated that the manager’s decision to keep the windows shut throughout the day, despite the heat, made the workshops where 200 to 300 worked unbearably hot. This strike was quickly quelled and all fifteen were charged. One man was convicted for quitting without notice. The case was appealed and Justice Walter Pereira acquitted the accused and the other 14 were subsequently released. It is perhaps interesting that the manager in this case, Mr. Thomas Marsden, was put on trial in the following year for failing to maintain sanitary latrines for the workers at the mills.  

The credit of effectively organizing the labour force goes to A.E. Gunasinghe who founded the Ceylon Labour Union in the early 1920s. He led the strikes organized by the Wellawatte Mills Trade Union in 1923, 1926 and 1929.  In 1933, the workers of the mills went on strike in protest of the reduction in wages decided by the management as a response to economic depression and competition from Japanese textiles. The workers also demanded that their working hours be reduced from 60 to 54 per week. However, when Gunasinghe advised against this work stoppage because it went against a previous agreement not to strike without notice, they turned to Colvin R. de Silva, who went on to take over the leadership of the labour force, forming the Wellawatte Mill Workers’ Union. The strike went on for two months, with the government and management refusing to acknowledge the newly formed union.   

During this time of economic depression, communal tensions between Sinhalese and Malayali workers were already high due to economic rivalry and competition for jobs.  This owed itself to the fact that key industrial strikes before and during these times were sabotaged by industrialists using cheap Malayali labour, who by this time formed a majority of the workers at the mills. Itis likely that Gunasinghe was concerned about the threat of a rupture within the movement itself as well as the undermining of his authority and the legitimacy of the labour movement due to the violation of the previous collective agreement. Another point of conflict between Gunasinghe and de Silva was their disagreement over the issue of land rights for plantation workers of Indian origin – de Silva supported these rights while Gunasinghe was opposed.

The 1933 strike was settled by a commission under the Industrial Disputes Ordinance of 1931, marking the first time it was used for a trade dispute. The Government reprimanded the workers for striking without notice, and the reduction of wages was limited to 12 percent to match the decrease in living costs due to the depression. The working hours were not changed, a decision that was justified by the fact that workers in Indian mills worked 60 hours a week. While this decision was celebrated by A.E. Gunasinghe, Colvin R. de Silva stated that it was neither ‘fair, just, nor reasonable’. Regarding the issue of wages which mainly sparked the strike, he stated that the principle of fluctuating wages relative to the cost of living was flawed and unacceptable as it fundamentally assumed that the prevailing wage rates are just. 

The trade union led by Colvin R. de Silva was described by the Controller of Labour at the time as being ‘less like a trade union and more like a political ideology’. This statement hints at the underlying Marxist principles in Colvin R. de Silva’s political stance which were not positively received by the government and many elites, in part due to the fact that these were the same underlying principles behind the Russian Revolution. This highlights the ideological clash between A.E. Gunasinghe’s Ceylon Labour Union (and Ceylon Labour Party), which was inspired and influenced by the British Labour Party, and the Youth Leagues, which was the precursor to the LSSP (Lanka Samasamaja Pakshaya), which was influenced by Marxist ideals. The strike at the mills was a key moment for the Youth Leagues as it gave them an opportunity for leadership and experience in trade union related activities which also marked the genesis of Sri Lanka’s left movement. The latter was important as it led to the realization of the importance of working-class unity and solidarity to exert economic pressure for political liberation, and the need to break through communal pressure to achieve this objective. The need for education for  the workers was considered essential, and from 1934 onward, the Youth Leaguers began establishing reading rooms and night schools for this purpose. They also organized May Day celebrations and meetings, which helped create a sense of international brotherhood and worker solidarity. During this time, several other workers unions were also created under the leadership of Youth Leaguers.

The decline of the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills can be traced back to the decline of exports in the wake of Sri Lanka’s “Import Substitution Policy”  from 1962-1968, as the mills depended on imported cotton as raw material. Among progressive measures introduced by the Government in May 1970 was the suggestion to nationalize many business enterprises, including the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills. The United Left Government also cancelled the approval of imports in the same year, leading to heavy losses. By 1973, the management sought permission to temporarily lay off staff, leading to a strike that lasted from September to February of the following year. In 1975, the Government imposed new price controls on textiles and the mill was required to sell all their products to Salu Sala. By this point, the Chairman of the Company was ready to hand over the mill to the Government because of the difficulty selling at the controlled prices. Continued instability led to another strike in January 1976, where the police had to intervene. The Government took over the Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills in March of the same year under the Business Acquisitions Act of 1971. In spite of the fact that Ceylon Silks Ltd. (an associate company) was operating profitably, and without as much unrest, it was also taken over, along with Libra Industries Ltd. (a subsidiary). 

The Mills functioned satisfactorily under the Government for a while under the planned economic system. However, when the economy was opened in 1977, the mills, with their outdated machinery, and less than optimal quantities and quality of production, could not stand against Japanese competition. Further expansion and modernization plans had to be abandoned due to financial constraints. In September of 1984, the decision was made to close down the mills. The employees were compensated, and after a process that took 17 years, the mills were finally liquidated in 2001. 

In 2002, S. P. Tao, the Chairman of Overseas Realty, who had previously been involved with the Ceylon Shipping Corporation, took over the site of the Mills. His vision was to create a luxury apartment complex, a “city within a city,” and on the 18th of May 2004, the ground-breaking ceremony for Havelock City took place. ‘Havelock City’ is developed by Mireka Capital Land, which is a joint venture between Overseas Realty and The Bank of Ceylon. The latter’s involvement is due to the fact that the land was previously vested in the Treasury, which owed a large amount of money to BOC.

And so the Wellawatte Weaving Mills are no more, and in an ironic twist of fate, the grounds where they stood, that was once a hub of activity and working class trade unionism, are now occupied  by  the Havelock City Luxury Apartments, inhabited by Colombo’s upper bourgeoisie. However, the memory of the mills remains in the name of the junction — Redimola Handiya—and the various changes its presence created in the ethnic and social makeup of its surroundings.  

2. The Polytechnic (19 minute walk from Fonseka Terrace)

Founded in 1901 in the Pettah, at a time when the education system and the labour market were at a disjunct, ‘The Polytechnic Ltd.’ was the pioneer training center in secretarial management, typewriting, shorthand, bookkeeping, and other office management skills that allowed young people to start or advance in their careers. This was embraced by a  generation of English speaking young people who had passed through the colonial education system and were looking to take on roles in business and public administration as clerks, typists, secretaries, and more. So the Polytechnic was a brilliant and a timely venture that recognized the importance of tertiary education and vocational training geared to the labour market. With time it expanded its curriculum to include courses on journalism, advertising, public relations, etc., to keep up with the changing times.

It’s founder, Lawrie Muthu Krishna was a pioneer in encouraging young people to acquire business management and other related skills. It is said that he received immense support from his sisters, Olive and Violet, who having completed their training at the Madras Technical College returned to join their brother as its first teachers. However, other sources suggest that it was Violet who first started the institution as a ‘steno typing’ office on the verandah of their family home on St. Sebastian Hill. 

The Polytechnic, or the Shorthand and Typewriting Institute as it was then called, quickly became popular. While taking up typewriting work and reporting, it also functioned as an educational institute. By 1907, only 6 years after it was founded, 150 students had been trained at the institute. The need for more spacious premises became evident as more students enrolled and more equipment had to be purchased to support the increasing workload and staff. The institute was extended to an adjoining house, where its operations expanded to undertaking external stenographic work, typewriter repairs and the supply of machine accessories. Within the first ten years of its inception, the Poly was relocated to a building in Bambalapitiya and was met with undivided enthusiasm from young school-leavers. During his Bambalapitiya days, Lawrie collaborated with the likes of Mr. Colette (the artist and cartoonist Aubrey Collette’s father), who was the only Private Examiner of Questioned Documents at the time.  

As the Pettah became a commercial hub, Colombo’s population drifted towards the stretch along the Galle road from Colpetty to Wellawatte. After moving to a building near Charlemont Road, Wellawatte, Lawrie established his family home and fathered three children; namely Prabhakara, Dinkar and Manorama. Their house remains the centre of the Polytechnic even today, though most of its structure has seen change and demolition over the decades.  The school and its business inevitably expanded with the growing number of students seeking professional training, and the Polytechnic flourished, diversifying its curriculum and specialization to meet the demands of WWII, where young men and women sought stenographic jobs with the allied powers .   

In the 1960s, following Lawrie’s demise, his daughter Mano Muthu Krishna could not look past her aunts’ request to take over as Managing Director of the Polytechnic. According to many who have known and worked with her, Mano was a remarkable woman, deeply passionate about furthering women’s education.  She was also the Chairman of the Jeeva Sanwardhana Ayathanaya (Guarantee) Ltd. which provided financial assistance to viable micro enterprises. Moreover, she was a founding member and Vice Chairman of the Sri Lanka Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce, and a core member of the Communication Center for Mental Health in Sri Lanka. 

Her interest in women’s causes is reflected in her leadership as a founding secretary and a past president of the Zonta Club of Colombo, which is a worldwide service organization of executives working together to advance the status of women. Under Mano’s directorship the Polytechnic became unique in that it was non-sectarian and co-educational, unlike other institutions of its kind. Reflecting the changing status of women worldwide in the 1960s, the Polytechnic enabled middle-class young women who for whatever reason could or did not want to pursue a university education, an opportunity to develop skills in order to start a career and join the workforce as paid workers. Owing to this, a substantial percentage of the Poly’s first students were women. Many of these Polytechnic students would later go on to work at leading firms in Colombo such as Roches, Machados, Carvallios, Paivas, F.X. Pereiras, Davoodbhoys, Sankar Ayers and De Liveras. 

While many young men and women undoubtedly benefited from the educational opportunities provided at the Poly, it was also popular because it gave them an opportunity to mix with each other and hang out. The nearby Plaza Cinema (which is now closed) and Savoy provided an easy place for young people to sneak off and play truant, and the Piccadilly Café, which interestingly was home to the first jukebox in the country, was a popular spot which students frequented, presumably before or after classes.   

Today, the original home of the family is overshadowed by the high-rise structures that surround it, and it has given up most of its surrounding land owing to the rising cost of maintenance. Yet, even to date, the ‘Poly’ speaks for an era of change that led to women’s education and perseverance. 

3. Second Hand Bookstores (31 minute walk from Fonseka Terrace)

Wellawatta is also home to a number of bookstores of significance. While the Rizwie Book Shop (formerly known as the Zachariah Book Shop, which was owned by Rizwie’s father) and Daniels Bookshop mainly focused on school textbooks and stationery at their onset, the Senanayake Bookstore and Deen the Bookman specialized in second hand books ranging from detective novels to classics and poetry. Each of these have unique histories of their own.

Images courtesy: Mithsandi Seneviratne

The Senanayake Bookstore was established by Piyasena Senanayake in the 1950s. Having moved to Colombo at the age of 14 to work at a general store owned and run by his brothers, Piyasena Senanayake was determined to start a business of his own. He started out by selling used books outside the store, and eventually, as the business grew, bought the building from his brothers and established the Senanayake Bookstore there, where it still is to this day. The bookstore is now run by his son, Sunil Senanayake.

Deen the Bookman is a bookshop that moved to Wellawatte only recently, in 2015. Its owner, T.H.P Dawood left school at age 15 due to financial hardships and by 20 had worked many different jobs. After following a course in shorthand and typewriting, he hoped to get a job as a secretary and typist like his father. However, his lack of proficiency in English was a barrier to these aspirations, and so, with the thought of going abroad and learning more English he joined Peter Bookshop — a secondhand bookshop in Maradana. He picked up the language quickly along with a thorough knowledge of books and soon became the head of the shop. He moved his shop to Slave Island and then to Wellawatte.

Nowadays the Wellawatte shop is mainly run by his son Samin. Mr. Dawood can be found at the Good Market at Race Course on Saturdays where they have a stall, while his son can be found at the CAN Market at the Colombo City Center on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. 

While a wide variety of interesting books can be found both at the bookshop and the stalls, the true extent of Mr. Dawood’s treasures are to be found in three storehouses in Wellampitiya, which hold roughly 100,000 books. Mr. Dawood notes that unlike a normal bookshop in which a single shelf will hold perhaps two or three titles with multiple copies of each book, a second hand store easily holds a hundred or so different titles on a single shelf, which makes his collection even more amazing. But what makes Deen the Bookman truly incredible is Mr. Dawood himself. He has a thorough knowledge of the books he has and can most likely find you a copy of whatever it is you’re looking for, (either in his own collection, or through the chain of collectors he’s gathered over the years). If he cannot, he can direct you to other books on the subject to suit your needs. If  you visit his bookshop in search of a particular book, you are likely to leave with at least three or four others. 

Over time, Mr. Dawood notices that people have less time to come and browse through books to find what they are looking for. And then, with the arrival of the pandemic, people value safety and would prefer to have books delivered to them. As such, over the past 5 or so years, he has been working on cataloguing the books in his collection and adding them to the online store on his website. However, the practice of placing orders for books and delivering them goes far back beyond the age of online shopping. Mr. Dawood mentions that he has been receiving orders over the phone for many years now.

Seventy-five percent or more of the second hand book selling business, according to Mr. Dawood, is a service. To find books, to direct customers toward books that may interest them, to tell them various interesting facts about the books are all important parts of it. And this is something Mr. Dawood takes pleasure in. ‘While we live, we must live with pleasure,’ he says. More than the monetary aspect of it, the social aspect of conversing with customers about books, exchanging facts and anecdotes which will then be passed on to new customers, gives him joy. 

Mr. Dawood also has a passion for protecting old books. He has been repairing and rebinding books since he first started working at Peter Bookshop, and continues to do so at his stores in Wellampitiya today.    

4. W.A. Silva Museum (10 minute walk from Fonseka Terrace)

Established in 2018, the W.A. Silva museum is the first museum dedicated to printing and its history in Sri Lanka. The Museum gets its name and its home from the popular Sinhala novelist W.A Silva.  Born in 1890, in his namesake Wellawatte, Wellawattearachchige Abhraham Silva or W.A. Silva wrote his first novel “Siriyalatha”, at the age of sixteen. ‘Silvermere’, his house at No. 126 High St. Wellawatte, was a place that was frequented by popular Sinhala movie stars in the likes of Eddi Jayamanne and Rukmani Devi. The duo also starred in the cinematic adaptation of Silva’s novel Kalae Handa (The Jungle Moon), which was the first Sinhala novel adapted onto the silver screen. Following his death in 1957, what was earlier known as the High Street in Wellawatte was renamed W.A. Silva Mawatha. 

At its inception, the museum focussed on language and literature. In 2019, it was taken over by Akuru Collective- a group that aims to spark interest in language and typography in Sri Lanka.  The collective along with a team of curators is overseeing a five-year plan to organize the personal belongings of W.A. Silva, including handwritten manuscripts and first editions of letterpress prints of his books, into a museum for letterpress printing in Sri Lanka. The collection includes what they refer to as the oldest Sinhala-English dictionary published by the State as well as a multilingual Bible published by the Dutch Fort printing press, which initiated the letterpress  system in the island in 1737.

Before Covid, the Museum had a vibrant life of its own where various Typography and Printing related workshops and other events took place regularly.  Over the next few years, the Akuru Collective aims to establish the museum as an active public cultural space that works with language, literature and typography. In the long run, they wish to begin an operative press which will retain this original form of letterpress printing. 

Letterpress printing uses a press which allows many copies to be made through the repeated direct impression of an inked stencil against a rolling sheaf of paper.  The press is labour intensive as a worker has to compose the different combinations of movable type onto the press ‘bed’, ink it and press the paper against the ink in order to transfer the type. Letterpress dates back to the mid 15th century when it was invented by Johannes Guttenberg and remained the primary means of circulating print material up until offset printing replaced it in the latter half of the 20th century.  In this day and age the interest in letterpress lies mainly due to its artisanal form. 

The museum staff have currently been able to collect various print-related machines from all over the island including Jaffna and Kurunegala. These include a 1920 paper-cutting machine and a proofreading machine from the 1940’s.

The Museum is open to the Public six days a week, including Saturdays. They aim to maintain an archive as well as an in-house library, for which they’ve already collected a few books and documents. The back of the house opens up to a garden, which in the long-run will be converted to a cafe for the benefit of the library and museum patrons. Currently, there is a well-maintained co-working space that can house up to six people and can be used for small meetings. This space also functions as an alternative souvenir shop for independent typography collectives and printing enthusiasts, and sells various typography related memorabilia. 

5. Wellawatte Canal (25 minutes to canal outlet)

The Wellawatte Canal was built as a flood outlet in Wellawatte in 1874. Although many believe it to be the work of the Dutch, the canal was actually commissioned by C.P. Layard, the British Government Agent of the Western Province.  

The canal in common usage is also known as Layard’s Folly and as Moda Ela (Fool’s Canal). This alternate naming has an interesting history. While the canal was expected to function as a flood outlet, following the monsoon rain it was evident that such drainage was infeasible due to the fact that the canal bed lay in a higher ground than the flood area. Hence the canal was dubbed Layard’s Folly or Moda Ela. These issues were eventually resolved and the canal was used to transport fruits and vegetables to the Wellawatte Market from Piliyandala and beyond as well as functioning as an effective flood outlet. While canals were a popular mode of  transportation especially during the time of the Dutch, as railways, roads, and motor vehicles came into popular use, the canals were severely neglected, leading to abandonment by the time of World War II. This negligence persisted even after the departure of the British, and despite various revival plans they mostly remain underutilized and heavily polluted. Flash floods in June 1992 finally forced the Government to act, and with the aid of Japanese loans the waterways were dredged, flood retention areas were demarcated, and low-income communities that had built their settlements along the canals were relocated. By 1997, most of the Colombo canals had been renovated. In 2010, a passenger boat service was launched on the Wellawatte Canal to transport students to the Open University in Nawala. This was successful for a while but came to an end for various reasons. In 2019 a boat service was launched along the canals from Wellawatte to Battaramulla. The Service was dropped due to reduced demand as a result of the Easter bombings, but was relaunched the following year. Currently, service is suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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