Dr. M. Roberts Oral History Project

Roberts Oral History Project - Interviews with Retired British & Local Administrators & Local Politicians of Ceylon



Courtesy : https://thuppahis.com/2018/05/22/how-it-became-documenting-the-ceylon-national-congress/ 


 The Inspiration 


Thomas Webb Roberts. 

 The inspiration for this project arose from my familial background. My father Thomas Webb Roberts (1881-1976) had been a “Ceylon Civil Servant” (CCS) in the British era– working as one of the administrators from 1901 to 1935 before retiring as a pensioner to settle down in his beloved town of Galle (where I grew up and attended St. Aloysius College). He had moved to England in 1961 to live out his life with one of my elder sisters in Streatham, London. 

Driven by my absorption in the history of the island, I asked him to write an account of his administrative experiences. He duly did so in 1963 by penning his “Memoirs.” This moment stimulated me to consider recorded interviews with him and British CCS men as well as other administrators who were living in retirement in the United Kingdom. A British public service organisation provided me with access to the names and addresses of these personnel. P

Preparation & Support 

Prof. Karl Goonewardena


I prepared an oral history research scheme involving a tape-recorder (the old spool type), monthly expenses and travel support for a period extending from circa October 1965 for five months or so and then presented this scheme to the Asia Foundation in Colombo with the strong backing of Professor Karl Goonewardena who headed the Department of History at Peradeniya. Prof. Karl Goonewardena The Asia Foundation endorsed the project. 

I completed my dissertation by the beginning of summer in 1965 and after short tour of Scotland as part of the Oxford Authentics Cricket Team and a two-month spell earning some cash as a bus conductor on the Isle of Wight, I returned to our semi-detached cottage at Bath Place, Oxford (rented from Merton College). This became my base for a number of trips to different parts of England to interview those administrators who had not only agreed to help me with my quest, but often provided me with bed and board on the occasion. 



The Task 


 I interviewed 32 personnel in late 1965 and early 1966; while also sustaining a correspondence with a few that yielded information, particularly on land policy and the Land Development Ordinance of 1935. Most of these interviews were recorded on spool, though a few (including Sir Peter Clutterbuck) did not wish to have the talks recorded. 




 Franklin Gimson, Leonard Woolf 

I carried my tape-recorder and tapes back with me when I returned to the island in March 1966 with my wife and child to resume my job at Peradeniya University.

 The Task extended to Local Administrators/Politicians 


It was only natural that I was moved to consider the continuation of this project by probing the experiences of retired Sri Lankan administrators. The Asia Foundation was more than ready to provide me with monies to cover travel expenses and other ancillary needs, while I had two married sisters in Colombo whose houses were home-from-home during week-end research trips or longer stays in the vacation months. 


 Kumari J. 

It so happened that I was interacting closely with Kumari and Lal Jayawardena who were back in Colombo at Gregory’s Road. Kumari’s line of research into the history of the labour movement meant that the aging AE Goonesinha was one of the first persons I interviewed in Sri Lanka on 12th May 1966.
In brief, my compass now embraced politicians as well as administrators.


 A. E. Goonesinghe 

Colombo was the location of most of these endeavours and my trips there were usually on a Vespa scooter with the tape-recorder between my feet and my luggage strapped on the pillion. In sum, another 118 personnel were interviewed, of whom 39 could be described as politicians. 

 Dr. S. A. Wickremasinghe 

 These researches into the island’s history and politics through the experiences and readings of administrators and political activists of all types were a learning curve for me as a young callow researcher. They sometimes brought new friends (for e. g. Vernon Gunasekera of the LSSP now resident in Kandy). On the odd occasion they generated ‘new finds’. That is, I came across new documents of historical value such as the Minutes of the Ceylon Reform League 1917-1919. 

 

Leslie Gunawardena, M. D. Banda, Edmund Samarakkody 
 ======= 


 Recording / Interviewing 


 The Roberts Oral History Project involved many stages and a range of tasks. The interviewing process has been clarified in two items –embracing personnel in Britain and thereafter in “Ceylon” (yet to become “Sri Lanka”): 
https://thuppahis.com/2020/12/04/the-roberts-oral-history-project-in-the-1960s-origins-outcomes/#more-47446 AND 
https://thuppahis.com/2020/12/06/adelaide-university-initiatives-a-michael-roberts-oral-history-project-1965-68/#more-47494. 

 While this work was in progress a partial consolidation was pursued by transcribing the spoken word into written typescript. The ‘engine’ for this process was my wife Shona Roberts. Looking at some dates I find that some of this work began at Bath Place Oxford itself. The bulk of the work, however, was undertaken in Sri Lanka when we were living in an annexe at Siebel Place off Peradeniya Road in Kandy. I could not type then, so the task was wholly Shona’s — a difficult job managing the spools and demanding rewinds often. I chipped in by listening and correcting the typed scripts [which then had to be re-typed]. All this was seen to in the period April 1966 to mid-1970 – a stage that saw the birth of our second child Maya Samantha in February 1967 and also involved child-minding and housekeeping tasks. It would not be amiss to cast Shona as the “Heroine of Siebel Place.” 



 Shona with Kim and Maya 

The Adelaide University records indicate that there are a total of 1720 pages of transcripts! 
 In summary, the ROHP work embraced recorded interviews[1] in Britain with 23 British “public servants” and 2 Barbadian public servants (the latter being my father TW Roberts and my stepbrother TFC Roberts, a lawyer who served as a Police Magistrate in the island for some time). 

Of the 23 British men, most were in the CCS proper, but GH Ferguson had been the Inspector-General of Police in the 1910s, AS Harrison had been in the Education Department, Sir JB Nihill had been a Legal Officer in the 1940s and SA Pakeman had run University College in the 1920s to 30s. I

In Sri Lanka two ‘stray’ British residents were embraced in my study – one a retired planter named Robert Semmence because he happened to be our neighbour at Siebel Place and the other, Derek Rowan, a big-wig in the mercantile sector. 

The main body comprised 28 CCS men 07 Ex-DLOs –District Land Officers 07 public servants of various types 70 “notables” – mostly politicians from a range of parties.

 Several of the Ceylonese CCS men had retired by the time I visited them or were holding commanding posts in the private sector when I met them. 

My encompassment of District Land Officers arose from my abiding interest in British land policy and the colonisation schemes initiated in the 1930s [itself a fruition of the work of CV Brayne and the Land Commission pursued by the Legislative Council of the 1924-30 period. 

It so happened that the staff at Peradeniya University included three former DLOs in Adikaram, LW Madugalle, Dr. Merlin Peris and GJ Wijetunge …. so it was a simple process to tap their experiences. 

 My records indicate that the first of the Sri Lankan interviews was with the aging AE Goonesinha on 12 May 1966. I recall that my friend Kumari Jayawardena facilitated the interview and was present—though, alas, Goonesinha had aged and had limited recollections or vigorous opinions (in contrast to his endeavours past). 

I stress, here, that I was still a callow young man immersed in the empiricist tradition when I ventured on this historical work in 1965 and that my youthfulness would have encouraged many of the British and Ceylonese servants of state to take an avuncular teaching stance in their responses and elaborations. My position as an University Lecturer at Peradeniya may have encouraged some of the Ceylonese men to accept my ‘intrusion’ – the only individuals who were brusque when I approached them face-to-face were NM Perera and Bernard Soysa (who are therefore out of this scenario). 

A large complement of Leftists is encompassed in this work: Hector Abhayavardhana, Colvin R and WA de Silva, Leslie Goonewardena, Vivienne Goonewardena, Philip Gunawardena, Robert Gunawardena, V Karalasingham, Pieter Keuneman, Anil Moonesinghe, Reggie Perera. Wilmot Perera, Basil Silva, TB Subasinghe, and Bala Tampoe. 

H. Abhayawardena,  M. Rajendra,  T. B. Subasinghe , G. P. Malalasekera 


Robert & Phillip Gunawardena , W. A. & Colvin R. de Silva,
Pieter Keuneman 


In my (unreliable) memory the sessions with Hector Abhayavadhana, Colvin R. de Silva, Wilmot Perera, and Leslie Goonewardena were particularly useful and wide- Robert &Phillip Gunawardena, W. A.de Silva, Dr. Colvin R. de Silva, Pieter Keuneman Hector Abhayawardena , M. Rajendra, T. B. Subasinghe, G. P. Malalasekera .

I suspect that my father’s standing in minds of the older generation of Sri Lankans and his long association with Galle aided the accommodating warmth of reception I received from such personnel as P de S. Kularatne, WA de Silva and his brother Colvin R – because our house in Pedlar Street in the Fort sat cheek by jowl with that of H. de S Kularatne (brother of P. de S) and our families intermingled frequently. 
These ‘linkages’ could be described as a “Salagama” chain. 

There was also a Karava ‘chain’: my stepbrother Gilbert had been an institution as teacher and cricket coach at St. John’s College, Panadura; and it is probable that this association encouraged the readiness with which Leslie Goonewardena responded to my inquiries. Likewise, my sister Audrey was a bosom friend of Suriya Wickremasinghe from her Ladies College days in the 1950s – so this facilitated the warmth with which Dr. S. A. Wicks (a Matara man) and his English wife responded to my questionings. There is, truly then, a Southern Province flavour to several connections. 





 Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide 



 Helen Attar of the Adelaide University Library — an invaluable mediating hand 

 Records 


Access to the Roberts Mss at the BARR SMITH library, Adelaide University 

To go directly to the digitised typescripts go to 


To go directly to Comments on Pul Eliya go to 

 
To access the list of the Roberts Mss material go to 

The full list of the cassettes tapes is at 

 
The full list of transcripts is at 


 If people are looking at your manuscripts collection, including items in the separate listings of interviews, transcripts, oral history recordings, maps and Government documents, they just need to email spark.collections@adelaide.edu.au and request a digitised copy. 

 The Barr Smith Library recommends the deployment of a NOTE such as this: “For access to this collection or to request a digitised version of an item, please contact Rare Books & Manuscripts at spark.collections@adelaide.edu.au” **** **** 

 SELECT BIBILIOGRAPHY 

BH Farmer 1957 Pioneer Peasant Colonisation, London. 

 Edmund Leach 1961 Pul Eliya. A Village in Ceylon. A Study of Land Tenure and Kinship, Cambridge University Press. 

 Lal Jayawardena 1963 The Supply of Sinhalese Labour to Ceylon Plantations (1830-1930), Ph. D Thesis in Economic History.,Cambridge University. V 

Kumari Jayawardena 1972 The Rise of the Labour Movement in Ceylon, Durham, North Carolina, Duke University Press. 

 Michael Roberts 1994: “I shall have you Slippered’ The General and the Particular in an Historical Conjuncture,” being chap 9 in Roberts, Exploring Confrontation Reading, Harwood Academic Press, 1994, pp. 213-48. 

 END NOTES

 [1] The interview with Sir Peter Clutterbuck (Secy to the Donoughmore Commission) was not recorded in accordance with his wish. But I penned a summary for the ROHP records. Likewise, a short memo was compiled after each interview indicating my readings of person and exchanges. 

 [2] Several of these CCS men were in senior mercantile posts after having retired early; Others were in retirement. 

 [3] My dissertation work had been in British land policy and I had intimate knowledge of the books crafted by BH Farmer and ER Leach …and had visited both in Cambridge (while Leach was one of my D. Phil examiners). As a result, the comments in Leach’s book Pul Eliya served as a means of addressing 20th century government programmes. 

 [4] Kumari was a friend of my sister Audrey (arising from Ladies College overlaps), but I got to know here in UK because I banged into her husband Lal Jayawardena at the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. Lal’s research field overlapped with mine and we had several riveting chats. 

 [5] See the incident analyses in Roberts, “I shall have you slippered’ … 1994. 

 [6] Bernard Soysa asked me to send him a written list of questions. NM was distinctly brusque. I did not bother them. 

 [7] One unforgettable interview with Dr. Colvin R. De Silva at his home in Pendennis Avenue, Kollupitiya began at midnight and lasted till about 2.00 am. ============ 

Access to the Michael Roberts Oral History Project recordings: 


 Option 1: Go to the Michael Roberts manuscripts listing 


And click on the link to Adelaide Research and Scholarship under Series 1 – Digital versions 

Option 2: Do a Google search on Michael Roberts. Oral History Project Option 2: Go to the University of Adelaide Libraries home 
page


On left hand menu bar click ‘Digital Services’ Then ‘Adelaide Research & Scholarship’ Then type in ‘Michael Roberts’ into the search bar at the top left of the screen to retrieve all your online items 

 Option 3: Go to the University of Adelaide Libraries home page 


On left hand menu bar click ‘Digital Services’ Then ‘Adelaide Research & Scholarship’
Click on ‘Communities and collections’ 
Scroll down to ‘University Library: Special Collections · Manuscript Collections’ 
Click on ‘Sound recordings’\ 
And then on ‘Title’ box to see a title list of recordings 
Click on the title of the recording and then on View/Open to listen. 

 Cheryl Hoskin Special Collections Librarian Ph: (08) 8313 5224 Barr Smith Library Email : cheryl.hoskin@adelaide.edu.au University of Adelaide S.A. 5005. 
 ================== 


For the record these interviews and exchanges were undertaken between late 1965 and 1968 in UK and Sri Lanka, with the labour being provided Michael Roberts and the funding by Asia Foundation backed by the recommendation of Professor Karl Goonewardena of History, Peradeniya. 

154 persons were interviewed – 31 ex-Ceylon administrators in Britain (29 British and 2 Barbadian) and 122 in Sri Lanka (administrators, politicians and notables). Because some were interviewed twice or thrice there are a total of 199 cassettes. 

 The Typed Transcripts 

 • 100 pages of Comments on E. Leach’s book Pul Eliya

 • 300 pages with Comments on each Interview by Michael Roberts plus some correspondence with information 

• Roberts Papers


OR 


 All enquiries on this subject should be addressed to library@adelaide.edu.au OR cheryl.hoskin@adelaide.edu.au …… 

Note that such items as the DR Wijewardena scrapbook and the James Peiris material are copies provided by the Dept of National Archives in Colombo with the technology available in the late 1960s after I mediated the temporary loan of these documents to the Archives. Fortunately I was able to mediate the donation of other bulky sets of documents to the Archives: notably those belonging to Gilbert Perera, EAP Wijeyeratne (donated by his son, Tissa) and the enormous pile relating to the Ceylon National Congress (donated by JR Jayewardene). Most of the latter are in print form in M. Roberts (ed.) Documents of the Ceylon National Congress, 4 vols.(Colombo: Department of National Archives, 1977). 

 MSS 0031 

 Series 1 Oral History Project (Ceylon / Sri Lanka) 1965-69 - Taped Interviews 

 300 cassette tapes plus 1720 p. of transcripts etc. 
Comprising tapes of 154 interviews by Michael Roberts of retired public servants who had served in Sri Lanka (mainly in the Ceylon Civil Service), politicians and other notables. 

List below can also be accessed here



RETIRED BRITISH & LOCAL ADMINISTRATORS/ LOCAL POLITICIANS 




Series 1 Oral History Project (Ceylon / Sri Lanka) 1965-69 - Transcript Interviews 


Also full transcripts of 22 interviews, notes and comments on other interviews, and comments on the work Pul Eliya: a village in Ceylon, by Edmund Leach.

Aluwihare, Sir Richard 68 p. 
Blood, Sir Henry 62 p. 
Dyson, E.T. 46 p. 
Ferguson, G.H. 51 p. 
Gimson, Sir Franklin 84 p. 
Goonewardena, Leslie 34 p. 
Hartwell, Sir Charles 45 p. 
Leach, Frank 127 p. 
Lucette, E.H. 34 p. 
Miles, G.C. 58 p.
Mulhall, J.A. 65 p. 
Newnham, H.E. 71 p. 
Nihill, J.H.B. 22 p. 
Roberts, T.W. 89 p. 
Rodrigo, Edmund 54 p.
Sandys, M.K.T. 38 p. 
Stevens, F.G. 23 p. 
Strong, A.N. 180 p. 
Tilney, C.E. 41 p. 
Wirasinha, V.L. 53 p.
Woolf, Leonard 30 p. 
Woolley, Sir Charles 45 p. =

============ 

News Item

 Courtesy

Colourful history of a historian 


Looking back on his ‘going-down memory lane interviews’ with retired Britishers and Sri Lankans who served mainly in the Ceylon Civil Service, Michael Roberts who was in Sri Lanka recently, talks to Adilah Ismail about the beginnings of a passion .

It’s the late 1960s. On most Fridays, Michael Roberts would make his way towards Colombo from Peradeniya, recording equipment balanced at his feet and his bag filled with assorted clothes strapped to the back of his trusty scooter. Navigating the sharp curves and turns on his two wheeler, once in Colombo, he would spend his weekend sprinting from one interview to another. These interviews were long excursions down memory lane conducted with retired British and Sri Lankan public servants who had served in Sri Lanka (mainly in the Ceylon Civil Service), Sri Lankan politicians and notable figures and were at times, dense with details thoughtlessly relegated to the margins of history books. Sometimes completing four to five interviews for a weekend, Michael would then return to Peradeniya, laden with other people’s memories and anecdotes of an era gone by. 




 Extract from Michael Roberts’ interview with Leonard Woolf 

A few decades later Michael reminisces about his oral history project and early beginnings in history and anthropology. He explains that this project was a humble attempt at archiving oral history and rescuing strands of Sri Lanka’s history from the memories of its aged civil servants. 

The project started off as an idea pitched to the Asia Foundation while studying at Oxford. In late 1965 and early 1966, Michael spent five months travelling all over England interviewing 30 – 40 British public servants who had served in Sri Lanka, including Leonard Woolf. 

The oral history project soon grew into an archive of 299 sound recordings of 154 interviews – some of which are accompanied with typewritten manuscripts, comments and bite sized fragments of historical gossip for the more salacious of history buffs. 

 “They were all very friendly and quite often I stayed with them. Because they were living all over England I had to travel even in winter, and most of them I taped with a big spool,” reflects Michael. These conversations provided a glimpse of their personal experiences as well as life in Ceylon and the politics of the Donoughmore Period, nationalism and land policies such as the land development ordinance of 1935. 

Educated at the University of Peradeniya (“I sort of drifted into university,” he confesses) and a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, Michael Roberts – although he is dismissive of labels – is a historian and anthropologist. 

Michael, who resides in Australia and was in Sri Lanka recently, has written and researched extensively on social mobility, identity, agrarian issues, urban history, caste, cultural domination, ethnic conflict and nationalism over the years. A quick search on the internet instantly yields countless articles and essays spanning these topics but it is his political writing and commentary on the last stages of the Sri Lankan war and aspects of nationalism, which has had brickbats, bouquets and epithets hurled in equal proportion. “If I analyze things in a certain way and reach certain conclusions, I have to present it – damn the consequences,” he says in a matter of fact manner, voicing his criticism for well-meaning but misinformed armchair intellectuals who don’t take into account basic empirical facts. 

 Michael’s oral history project has now been digitized and the bulk of it can be accessed from the University of Adelaide’s digital library. Leonard Woolf’s interview for instance, is accompanied with PDFs of scanned yellowing typewritten transcripts as well as notes from his conversation with Michael in December 1965. Michael’s typewritten notes comment on Woolf’s unflinching candour with little regard for the recorder as well as his severe appraisal and judgement of the men who worked around him. 

 Upon Michael’s return to Sri Lanka and appointment as a lecturer at the University of Peradeniya, he continued the oral history project shuttling between the hills and the capital, adding local voices and well-known names to its growing archive. 

 Born to a West Indian father and Sri Lankan mother, raised in Galle and constantly mistaken for a Burgher, identity politics were inevitably intertwined in Michael’s personal life from his early days. Armed with a social scientist’s gaze, he reflects on his childhood and discusses how we go through life always constituting our identities, discarding or adding as we grow. “These identities come into play at different contexts but some become central,” highlights Michael. A teenager, for instance, might identify him/herself in accordance with the school they attend (for example, a Thomian, Royalist etc) while this may change into occupational identities (accountant, doctor, mother) or even ethnic ones. 

 Unconsciously, our conversation soon turns into the mildest of cerebral tussles. I’m curious about the history of the historian, while like a magnetic compass pointing north, Michael possesses the singular talent of directing the conversation into more political terrain. Apart from issues of identity, class and ethnic prejudice, Michael has explored facets of nationalism closely in his writing, along with analyses and results of the final stages of the war in his numerous essays and articles as well as on his blog (https://thupahi.wordpress.com/). 

 After a teaching stint at Peradeniya and research fellowships in the US and Germany, Michael moved to Adelaide with his family and taught at the University of Adelaide from 1977 – 2002. While moving countries (incidentally, a steel cabinet brimming with books also made the trip across the seas), he also made a shift in subjects, exchanging history for anthropology. “Moving sideways from history into anthropology meant developing my sociological and political science skills – so it was a kind of re-education as well. Because when you have to teach, you learn. You’re always learning when you teach, isn’t it? In fact, the best learning path is to actually be a teacher,” muses Michael. An Adjunct Associate Professor at University of Adelaide’s Department of Anthropology since 2003, Michael now devotes his time to writing on a range of issues as well as managing his blogs, Thuppahi and https://cricketique.wordpress.com/. 

 The high-pitched cries of a koel and the staccato hammerings at a construction site have been the soundtrack to our discussion as we dqelved into Michael’s life and research. Which brings us to the question – Why history? What propelled his fascination? Michael pauses and gives a characteristically pragmatic answer. “I think it’s a hobby, a passion […] People say you learn from history but I don’t know about that. I’m sceptical seeing power play and politicians and worldwide forces…” 

 End 

NOTE

https://island.lk/dr-michael-roberts-donates-his-research-collection-to-national-library/

Dr. Michael Roberts donates his research collection to National Library

2020/10/20

Dr. Michael Roberts, former professor, Department of Anthropology at Adelaide University, Australia, has donated his research collection of books, articles, journals, documents, etc., to the National Library of Sri Lanka. The collection is available for the benefit of the academics, researchers and general public worldwide.

Michael Roberts is a Sri Lankan-Australian, who received secondary and university education in Sri Lanka. He attended St. Aloysius College, Galle, and graduated with Honours in History at the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya before proceeding to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. After securing his D. Phil in History, in 1965, he taught at the University of Peradeniya from 1966 to 1976. He joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of Adelaide, Australia, in 1997. He has since retired and is now an Adjunct Associate Professor at the same University.










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eminent Aloysian Historians - 4 - Dr. Michael Roberts

Image
Eminent Aloysian Historians (4) Contents Introduction Important Milestones  In Ceylon In the UK In the US In Germany  In Adelaide, Australia Special Assignments Worldwide Publications  Books  Booklets Books: Silent/Joint Books: Edited Books: Jointly Edited Articles  Joint Article Compilations  Unrefereed Popular  Essays : Politics  Unrefereed Popular Essays : Sports - Incomplete Listing  Other Developments Websites Biographical Note  Career Highlights :  International Connections: Teaching Experience At the University of Ceylon at Peradeniya, 1966-1976 At the Department of Anthropology, University of Adelaide, 1977-2002 Administrative and Editorial Experience Administrative Editorial Dr. Michael Roberts  (Extracted mainly from his own written records) Courtesy :  https://thuppahis.com etc https://thuppahis.com/2022/04/12/michael-roberts-a-partia...
Read more

Dr. M. Roberts Documenting the Ceylon National Congress

Image
Contents Introduction  Founding & Role of the Ceylon National Congress  The Handbook of the Ceylon National Congress Documenting the Ceylon National Congress  The Beginning The Process & Outcome Struggle for Independence Creation of the United National Party 1945-1950 & Dissent Some Sources on the CNC  1919-1950  1. Ariyaratne, R. A. 1977. 2. Cooray, M.H.V. 2004  3. De Silva, K. M. 1981. 4. De Silva, K. M.  5. Gunawardena, R.H.R.  6. Rajasingham, K. T. 2001. 7. Roberts, Michael. 1977. 8. Roberts, Michael. 1978.  9. Sabaratnam, T. 2010.  10. Wickramasinghe, Nira 2015.  Additional Sources: Bandaranaike, S.W.R.D. 1928.  =========== How it Became The Final Product How the Documentary Book Came into Fruition Introduction  Founding & Role of the Ceylon National Congress  Extract from Wikipedia   "The Ceylon National Congress (CNC) was a political party in coloni...
Read more